What is a Health Campaign?
Health campaigns are time-bound, intermittent activities that address specific epidemiologic challenges, expediently fill delivery gaps, or provide surge coverage for health interventions. They can be used to prevent or respond to disease outbreaks, control or eliminate targeted diseases as a public health problem, eradicate a disease altogether, or achieve other health goals. Read more about why health campaigns are important.
Despite the many successes of health campaigns, current approaches can limit their potential impact. In settings where multiple campaigns occur, planning and implementation may be carried out with little communication or collaboration among stakeholders and with inadequate coordination with country health systems. This may result in inefficiencies and inequities that can strain health systems, burden health care workers, weaken health services and limit the potential impact of campaigns.
The Coalition
Until now, there has been no established forum to promote promising practices across the many and varied types of health campaigns. To address these gaps, The Task Force for Global Health has launched the Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Coalition is a cross-campaign coalition that fosters learning and systems change. It brings together country leaders, donors, multilateral organizations, and NGOs from several large-scale health campaign domains, as well as specialists in health systems, ethics, and health economics.
The Coalition supports research that fosters the testing and replication of evidence-based campaign practices. It also develops guidelines and approaches so that campaigns can improve collaboration with the health systems of countries.
The Coalition welcomes your questions and inquiries. Please visit our contact page.
Learn more about how the Coalition was designed in this introductory video.
Vision & Impact
The Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition envisions country-led health systems using campaigns and ongoing services to achieve and sustain health-related development goals for all people.
The ultimate impact of the Coalition is that health system objectives are met through effective and equitable use of campaigns that are planned and delivered in conjunction with ongoing health services and that reach all populations targeted for the intervention(s).
Approach
The Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition works to improve collaboration between health campaigns and health systems through three strategies.
Create a forum for learning and coordination
Identify, test + replicate evidence-based practices
Advocate for policy alignment and collaboration
Program Office
The Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition’s program office is located at The Task Force for Global Health. The team guides the Coalition towards its strategic objectives by supporting management, coordination and communication, and facilitates implementation research and knowledge management collaboration with Coalition members.
Kristin Saarlas, ScD, MPH
Director
Kristin is the Director for Health Campaign Effectiveness at The Task Force for Global Health (TFGH) in Georgia, United States. She provides strategic oversight and technical direction to the Coalition. Kristin returned to The Task Force in December 2019 after nine years with USAID working as a Sr. Evaluation Advisor based in Jerusalem, Washington D.C. and Ethiopia and as the East Africa Regional Advisor for the U.S. Peace Corps, also based in Ethiopia. From 1994-2007, Kristin worked at TFGH as the Deputy Director of the All Kids Count Program and Public Health Informatics Institute. Previously, she was at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention working on the Combating Childhood Communicable Diseases Program and began her public health career working on Guinea Worm eradication as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin. Dr. Saarlas holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Michigan State University, a Master of Public Health in International Health and a Doctor of Science in Health Systems Management, both from Tulane University.
Teshome Gebre, PhD, M.Sc.
Senior Advisor
Teshome is a Senior Advisor for Health Campaign Effectiveness. He also currently works as Regional Director for Africa with the International Trachoma Initiative, a program of TFGH, and is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Teshome has more than 35 years of experience, ranging from various positions within the Ethiopian Ministry of Health ⎼ most of which were in disease control and eradication programs ⎼ to The Carter Center where he led the Ethiopia office as a founding Country Director. Teshome played a leading role in establishing and managing the national immunization program and several neglected tropical diseases control and eradication programs in Ethiopia. He has published more than 87 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals. Dr. Gebre holds a Master of Science in Global Health Policy from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Doctorate in Health Care Management from Century University and is registered and licensed as a Consultant Health Science Specialist by the Ethiopian government.
Allison Snyder, MPH
Associate Deputy Director
Allison is the Associate Deputy Director for Health Campaign Effectiveness at The Task Force for Global Health in Georgia, United States. In this role she provides support, management, and strategic planning and guidance for the program and the coalition. She joined the Coalition in 2020, after four years serving in a management and support role within The Task Force’s Neglected Tropical Diseases Support Center, the secretariat for the Coalition for Operational Research on Neglected Tropical Diseases. Allison has broad domestic and global health and development experience, including three years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda, leading health education initiatives, providing program design and implementation support, and leading project and portfolio management. Ms. Snyder holds a Bachelor of Science in International Affairs from Florida State University and a Master of Public Health from Emory University.
Patricia Richmond, MPH
Project Support Specialist
Patrica is a Project Support Specialist for Health Campaign Effectiveness at The Task Force for Global Health in Georgia, United States. She returned to Task Force for Global Health in March 2021, having previously worked with the All Kids Count program and the Public Health Informatics Institute. From 1997 – 2004, Patricia worked with partners at state and local health departments across the United States, helping to develop quantitative indicators for evaluating immunization registries, and managing All Kids Count Connections, one of the first communities of practice around integration of child health information systems. Ms. Richmond studied maternal and child health in Madurai, India as a participant in the South India Term Abroad Program, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from William Smith College, a Master of Public Health from Emory University, and a certification in Compassionate Leadership in Global Health.
Carol McPhillips-Tangum, MPH
Consultant
Carol is a Technical Advisor and Consultant for Health Campaign Effectiveness at The Task Force for Global Health in Georgia, United States. Carol has more than 20 years of experience in research and evaluation. She has led teams of health educators, health service researchers, and data analysts in the design, implementation and evaluation of health improvement and disease management programs for diverse populations. Ms. McPhilips-Tangum received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, San Diego and a Master of Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health. She is a member of the American Evaluation Association and the Public Health Leadership Society.