Global Health

Researchers at UConn’s Center for Health, Intervention, and Prevention (CHIP) design, implement, evaluate, and disseminate theory-based, but highly practical, health behavior change interventions for at-risk populations around the world.

In fact, with active, externally-funded projects in Albania, China, Ethiopia, India, Malaysia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Uganda, more than 30 percent of currently active CHIP grants involve health behavior change interventions designed or adapted for other countries, with sustainability in mind and with the potential to save countless lives.

CHIP’s research portfolio in Africa is especially large, comprising approximately $16.5 million in active grants across all years since FY02.

Much of CHIP’s international work is in the core problem area of HIV/AIDS, a research arena in which

CHIP continues to be a worldwide leader. CHIP’s international HIV/AIDS work includes prevention with HIV-positive individuals, addressing barriers to reducing risk behaviors, such as alcohol and substance use and the prevalence of gender-based violence in many of the countries where CHIP investigators are working, and promoting optimal adherence to life-saving antiretroviral therapies. A CHIP research team also is currently determining how geospatial factors, such as environment, culture, and politics, can affect the efficacy of HIV prevention interventions, with the ultimate goal of assembling a geospatial landscape of HIV prevention interventions around the world and publishing an interactive map on the Internet, so that it can become a resource for researchers, public health workers, and policy makers around the world.

Select examples of CHIP international research in other health areas include a new line of autism research in Albania focused on screening, diagnosis, and parent training for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and a concluded line of health communication research evaluating the effectiveness of communication campaigns focused on reproductive health and family planning in developing countries.