Your Impact - 2018 Donor Report • A Celebration of Our Partners

During the Zika virus outbreak in 2016, Puerto Rico had the most U.S. Zika infections, a high rate of unintended pregnancy and limited access to contraception. To help reduce Zika-related birth defects, the CDC Foundation with CDC and partners launched the Zika Contraception Access Network (Z-CAN). Z-CAN served 29,000 women in Puerto Rico during the Zika outbreak. While Z-CAN ended in fall 2017, the groundbreaking approach continues to have an impact, including through a new Z-CAN toolkit. The toolkit provides insightful resources for people who want to learn about, replicate or adapt components of this novel program. Z-CAN would not have been possible without a coalition of donors and partners who came together to improve lives in Puerto Rico. Dissemination of the toolkit is being furthered with lead support from Bayer.

How can we spend smarter and stay healthier? One solution is CDC’s 6|18 Initiative, which addresses six high-burden, high-cost health conditions—tobacco use, high blood pressure, healthcare-associated infections, asthma, unintended pregnancies and diabetes. CDC is targeting 18 evidence-based interventions and connecting with healthcare purchasers, payers and providers to improve health and control costs related to these conditions. The CDC Foundation and Grantmakers in Health, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, held sessions to educate philanthropies about 6|18 and engage in cross-sector discussions with health departments on opportunities to achieve cost returns in pilot states. As one outcome, the Peterson Center on Healthcare connected with Rhode Island on a program aimed at studying healthcare costs and trends to improve care delivery. The CDC Foundation also developed resources to help health departments form their own partnerships.

Cryptococcal meningitis (CM) is a common infection and leading cause of death for people with HIV/AIDS. More than 223,000 estimated CM cases occurred in 2014, resulting in nearly 200,000 deaths. Three-quarters of these deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa. In the past, it has proven difficult to save lives affected by CM in resource-limited settings. This situation is changing in South Africa, where the CDC Foundation worked with CDC to conduct a program from 2014–2018 with support from Pfizer aimed at protecting patients with advanced HIV from CM. The program included laboratory and clinical trainings, enhanced monitoring, and costing and implementation of national CM screenings. Since the rollout, screenings in South Africa remain high, with 98 percent of eligible patients receiving screens. Almost 24,000 CM patients have been identified, providing an opportunity for them to receive much-needed treatment—key to saving lives.

The Cardiff Violence Prevention Model provides a way for communities to gain a clearer picture about where violence occurs by combining and mapping both hospital and police data on violence. Through a CDC Foundation grant funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a local Cardiff Model partnership in metropolitan Atlanta was created with Grady Memorial Hospital and the DeKalb County Police Department. This partnership worked closely with CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, which provided technical assistance and support for adapting the Cardiff Model to the United States and applying public health approaches for violence prevention. A new toolkit of education materials designed to help communities interested in implementing the Cardiff Model was launched on CDC’s website this year. In addition to the toolkit, a video about the Cardiff Model was also developed and distributed.

Globally, 360,000 drowning deaths occur annually, making drowning the third-leading cause of unintentional injury death. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) account for over 90 percent of unintentional drowning deaths worldwide and sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s highest drowning rate. Although the estimated burden of drowning is high in sub-Saharan Africa, data collection and surveillance for drowning deaths is very limited. Bloomberg Philanthropies is supporting a program with CDC through the CDC Foundation to study and understand the scope of the drowning problem in sub-Saharan Africa, including Uganda. During the past year, the project made excellent progress by collecting drowning-related data across Uganda. This information will inform public health officials and policymakers on the problem and assist in implementing drowning prevention programs, policies and plans to mitigate drowning risks and save lives.

In September 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck Puerto Rico causing catastrophic damage. CDC sprang into action, working to help restore health to affected communities. The CDC Foundation followed suit by raising support for the hurricane response as well as seeking assistance for CDC’s Puerto Rico-based staff through the CDC Health Worker Relief Fund. Many quickly stepped forward with generous support for this fund, including CDC employees, retirees, current and former Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, Watsonian Society members and others. Initially, the CDC Foundation sent supplies, such as food, water, batteries and generators, to assist CDC’s Puerto Rico-based staff so that they could help stabilize their own situations and then aid in the broader response. Beyond this initial support, staff were eligible to apply for assistance to meet critical individual and family needs.