At a glance
National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) are national-level institutions - like the U.S. CDC - that lead and coordinate essential public health functions. NPHIs serve as a country's home to organize and link public health activities under one "roof," which improves collaboration, efficiency, and impact. CDC's support of these science-based institutions enhances their ability to use data to better detect, respond to, and contain public health crises worldwide.
What we do
Since 2011, experts in CDC's Division of Global Health Protection (DGHP) have been helping establish and strengthen NPHIs in countries around the world, empowering them to effectively lead and coordinate critical public health activities, including surveillance, response, and capacity-building efforts.
When public health activities are organized and interconnected by an NPHI, countries are better able to:
- Respond to outbreaks quickly.
- Use resources efficiently.
- Sustain public health system investments.
- Foster leadership and accountability.
- Maintain a healthy population.
For example:
- In Mozambique, CDC partnered with the NPHI, Instituto Nacional de Saúde (INS), to support their response to natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and health-related consequences of population displacement from climate- and conflict-related events. With CDC's support, Mozambique's INS enhanced their strategic and operational planning for emergency management, establishing a critical foundation for a successful cross-sector response during a Cholera outbreak in 2023.
- In Burkina Faso, CDC-supported NPHIs and played an essential role in tackling outbreaks. Since 2018, after years of preparation and capacity-building in partnership with CDC, Burkina Faso's L'Institut National de Santé Publique (INSP) activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC), developed a COVID-19 management plan, and created a pandemic taskforce, effectively launching a unified, efficient COVID-19 response that helped contain the outbreak and protect lives.
Impact
CDC's partnership with NPHIs has allowed DGHP to make critical connections between communities, public health experts, health care facilities, country leaders, global organizations, and other key stakeholders for greatest impact. Our peer-to-peer relationships with NPHIs have allowed us to leverage a shared commitment to public health that enhances the effectiveness of our work together in the global response.
More specifically:
- DGHP has partnered with 32 countries and 5 regions to establish or strengthen their own CDC-like NPHIs to protect community health and contain diseases close to the source.