The CHAMPS Network was established to develop a long-term network of high-quality sites to collect robust, standardized longitudinal data with the ultimate goal of understanding and tracking preventable causes of childhood death globally. 

Providing accurate, timely, and reliable data on the causes of stillbirths and death for children under age five will deliver evidence needed to work towards significantly reducing child deaths in lower-resource countries. HJFMRI participates in several studies in Africa through this network around pregnancy, early childhood health, and COVID-19. The CHAMPS Network Program Office leads the network under the direction of the Emory Global Health Institute, and the project is funded through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Capacity Building 

The overall goal of this award is to build the capacity in Kisumu and Siaya Counties to use CHAMPS data for public health action. Key objectives of the study are to improve skills of county staff to formulate strategic questions that can be answered with their data and use findings to guide policies and programs to reduce under-five child mortality. In addition, clinicians and staff will conduct mortality review meetings to better understand under-five causes of death and their policy implications. 

Antenatal and Postnatal Care Research 

This study supports enhanced pregnancy surveillance at the CHAMPS Kenya site with the goal of establishing a system that identifies, educates, and monitors pregnant women across the CHAMPS catchment area to facilitate timely and accurate detection of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, and adverse maternal/perinatal outcomes. 

The surveillance system operates using existing community and health facility structures, underpinned by a robust data capturing system designed to house various data types ranging from individual-level clinical to systems-level parameters. The site will also conduct interventional pilot trials to assess the effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility, and cost of new tools and service delivery approaches.  

In the lead up to this research, HJFMRI supported research to address current antenatal and postnatal COVID-19 research gaps in understanding the burden of COVID-19 in pregnant women and newborns, associated risk factors, and associated maternal morbidity and mortality in Western Kenya. Emory, HJFMRI and KEMRI also collaborated to investigate ophthalmic surveillance methods for diseases that are causative or associated with under-five mortality.