Public Health

As part of an effort to increase the participation of South Sudanese in the peace process and now the civic life of their new nation, the Sudan Radio Service provides access to balanced and useful information through radio-based education, news, and entertainment programs presented by local presenters in nine languages. Independent research found that Sudan Radio Service has approximately one million listeners.

Sudan Radio Service also builds the capacity of Sudanese journalists through its Certificate in Broadcast Journalism program and through on-the-job training.

The Dental Therapist Project (DTP) will improve the oral health of underserved children and families by transforming the dental workforce and establishing dental therapist providers as standard members of the dental health team in the United States. Dental therapists receive two years of intensive training to provide preventive oral health care and commonly needed services such as fillings and uncomplicated extractions. They work under the general supervision of an offsite dentist who pre-approves the procedures they perform and reviews their work via phone, fax, and the Internet.

Since 1991, EDC staff have served as consultants and advisors to the World Health Organization (WHO) and have authored numerous publications for WHO on global school health issues. In 1998, HHD was designated as the WHO Collaborating Center to Promote Health Through Schools and Communities. The Center’s goal is to deliver services that strengthen the capacities of schools and communities worldwide to promote the healthy development of students, school personnel, families, and surrounding communities.

EDC is facilitating a policy development project to promote mental health assessments and improve access to mental health services for youth suspended or expelled from California schools. After an analysis of current school district policies on suspension and expulsion from data and focus groups, EDC will determine policy and program recommendations that enable students to receive necessary mental health services in an effort to reduce dropout rates and disparities in access to services.

The Center helps college and community leaders develop, implement, and evaluate programs and policies to reduce student problems related to alcohol and other drug use and interpersonal violence. In order to produce enduring, large-scale changes that will make students’ social and cultural environment healthier and safer, the Center supports a comprehensive approach to prevention, grounded in environmental management strategies that address the institutional, community, and public policy factors related to these problems.

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) enhances the nation’s mental health infrastructure by providing states, government agencies, private organizations, colleges and universities, and suicide survivor and mental health consumer groups with access to the science and experience that can support their efforts to develop programs, implement interventions, and promote policies to prevent suicide.

The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention (National Center) provides technical assistance (TA) and training to 106 federally-funded Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) grantees and to six Project LAUNCH (Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children’s Health) (PL) grantees.

EDC will continue to support the Caribbean’s education sector in their comprehensive response to HIV and AIDS. To build their capacity in program monitoring and evaluation, EDC will organize a regional, multi-agency, inter-sectoral workshop to reach consensus on the draft framework developed previously and outline the content of an accompanying capacity development tool; draft the capacity development toolkit; circulate and revise the monitoring and evaluation framework and capacity development toolkit; and integrate comments and recommended revisions from regional and national partners.

The new EDC e-Learning & Capacity Building Assistance Center will promote the effective delivery of evidence-based behavioral interventions, early HIV counseling, testing, and referrals to African American and Latino communities which are disproportionately burdened by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.