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• The iHASE Collaboration Center model of collaboration on applied HIV Epidemiology is based on three similar collaboration center models:
  • The Who Collaborating Centre (CC) model, a World Health Organization (WHO) collaboration mechanism through which non-WHO institutions designated by the Director-General of the World Health Organization can form part of an international collaborative network carrying out activities in support of WHO's mandate for international health work and its program priorities. For additional information on WHO CC's  click here;
  • The CDC's Prevention Research Centers model, a public-private or public health-academic collaborative model designed to stimulate collaborative research purposefully directed at supporting public health practice through adding scientific knowledge about preventing and controlling chronic disease (see Figure 1 ). For further information on the Prevention Research Center concept, please click on the link to the CDC Narrative of the PRC Conceptual Framework .
  • The Council on Linkage Between Academia and Public Health Practice's Academic Health Department model represents a formal collaborative affiliation between governmental Health Departments and local Schools of Public Health (or Medicine) as proposed by Dr. C. William Keck [MD, MPH]. The concept is similar to the more familiar affiliation between academic medical institutions and "teaching hospitals." Involving academic institutions in the elucidation and solution of community health problems can help address the problem of disjunction between Public Health practice from its academic base, which is needed to sustain academic-caliber Public Health excellence and rigor . Based on this model,  there are three key issues that an iHASE Collaboration Center arrangement would be particularly helpful in addressing:

    -Access to Expertise: Public Health Departments and their Community partner-agencies have limited access to expertise needed to assess community needs and respond to changing demands for service;

    -Public Health Epidemiology Capacity: Community-based public health Epidemiologic research to elucidate and solve public health problems is currently too limited in quantity and quality as Health Departments and their Community partner-agencies have limited capacity to meet the need;

    -Applied Epidemiology & Public Health Training: The public health workforce, and public health and medical professions students are not as well prepared in applied Public Health as they could or should be to meet the needs of communities. 

    This model is propounded further in Figure 2 by Dr. Benjamin Muthambi [DrPH, MPH]. For further information on the Academic Health Department concept, please click here.

• The collaborative mechanisms propounded by the two models above provide mutually beneficial 4-way opportunities for public health agencies, communities served, public health workforce in-service trainees/students and academics/researchers.