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About Us
Building & Sharing Knowledge
CHAMPS is a global surveillance network that generates and shares accurate cause of death data on child mortality.
Who We Are
The CHAMPS Story
Every year, nearly six million children under the age of five die. The causes of these deaths often remain a mystery due to gaps in disease surveillance, death registries and data to inform evidence-based policy. This is especially true in low-resource countries, where mortality rates are highest. CHAMPS works to close these gaps by gathering scientific evidence needed to save young lives. Envisioned as a long-term program supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CHAMPS seeks to identify definitive causes of stillbirths and child deaths through community engagement, mortality surveillance, diagnostic and laboratory innovation, and rapid, open access to data. CHAMPS transforms data into action, working with partners to use our findings to inform evidence-based solutions to save lives.
Our Mission
The CHAMPS network uses innovative approaches to generate and share knowledge that improves understanding and prevention of child mortality.
Our Vision
A world where evidence-based interventions offer every child an equal chance to thrive.
How We Work
Data for the Future
CHAMPS is working to create a world where all children are able to thrive. Using minimally invasive tissue sampling, histopathology, molecular and microbiologic diagnostics, clinical data abstraction, and verbal autopsies, CHAMPS’ global network identifies and analyzes specific causes of stillbirth and death in children under five and shares that data to drive life-saving interventions.
Understand Local Context
Understand Local Context
Our robust community engagement and social-behavioral science activities allow us to understand the local culture and context of the communities in which we work. A vital component of what we do involves talking to community members and leaders to understand their perceptions of child death, their experiences with the healthcare system, and their openness to participating in CHAMPS activities. Building trust and partnership with communities makes it possible for us to collect the information and specimens needed to better determine why a child has died.
Gather, Build & Analyze
Gather, Build & Analyze
Through community and facility-based mortality surveillance efforts, we receive timely notification of child deaths and reach out to families for consent to collect postmortem specimens and clinical data. These samples are analyzed for specific types of damage to tissues and specific pathogens. Data are reviewed by a group of clinicians, scientists and other health practitioners in a process called Determination of Cause of Death, or DeCoDe, in order to assign immediate, underlying and contributing causes of death.
Share Findings
Share Findings
Once a cause of death is known, we share findings with families, community groups and public health officials to give parents the answers they’re looking for and to inform public health actions. Family follow-up provides an opportunity to share health resources and education, and connect community members to health services. Data are updated and shared in real-time through open-access digital platforms.
Drive Change with Data
Drive Change with Data
We partner with National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) and ministries of health to integrate CHAMPS data into their evidence-based decision-making processes, resulting in country-led interventions, resource allocation, and scientifically based recommendations and public policies to save child lives.
Data to Action
Explore the Data
Get a clear and precise visualization of the populations enrolled in our surveillance, as well as data on causes of stillbirths, and deaths in neonates, infants and children.