Our Impact

OUR NETWORK

A Message From the CHAMPS Network

CHAMPS’ success is built on the trust and resilience of the families we serve and the support of communities who have lost too many children. Over 8 years, CHAMPS has worked with communities and built local capacity to determine definitive causes of stillbirths and child deaths across our network of sites in Africa and South Asia, two regions that account for 82% of under-five child mortality worldwide.

Our detailed data and analysis on causes of death show that at least 70% of stillbirths and child deaths are preventable with existing interventions. To address persistent health inequities and improve maternal health and child survival, CHAMPS is sharing knowledge and using its network to provide policymakers, partners, health workers, communities, and parents with information and recommendations to save young lives.

We thank the many stakeholders and partners who make CHAMPS’ work possible and commit to accelerating our shared goals to end preventable child deaths everywhere.

amCharts Map – Optimized Timing

CHAMPS DATA

CHAMPS By the Numbers

Too many children under the age of five die from preventable causes of death each year. While under-five mortality is dropping globally, efforts to reach the most severely affected communities are failing, and the number of stillbirths and newborn deaths has not declined. Accurate

deaths investigated

minimally-invasive tissue sampling procedures completed

deaths assigned causes with full results

0 %

of deaths could have been prevented with existing interventions

DATA FOR THE FUTURE

Our Impact

Building Community Trust & Ownership

Trust & Ownership

Impact

A coalition of community representatives, partners and an advisory board is formed at each site to collaborate with CHAMPS social behavioral and community engagement (SBS/CE) teams to improve pregnancy and mortality surveillance. This collaboration builds trust, supports community-led solutions, and facilitates community ownership to sustain maternal and child health programs.

Interventions

CHAMPS investigations show that at least 70% of child deaths in regions of Africa and South Asia are preventable with existing interventions, a stark reminder of health inequities and an urgent call to accelerate action to save these young lives.

Strengthening Local Health Systems

SBS/CE teams continue to strengthen maternal and child health efforts in CHAMPS communities, including:

Transportation for community members to health care facilities in Mozambique
Grief counseling services in South Africa
Links to antenatal care services in Kenya through CHAMPS pregnancy surveillance
Community health activities in Sierra Leone, in collaboration with local health officials and health facilities
Better access to antenatal care in Bangladesh in coordination with local programs
Community health education through theatre in Mali and Ethiopia

Engaging Families to Improve Public Health

Improve Public Health

Prenatal care could prevent

4 of 5 stillbirths & 3 of 5 newborn deaths

Impact

CHAMPS enrollment and findings, shared with families, bring understanding after the loss of a child. The information can:

Empower families to improve health practices when planning for another child
Benefit the health of other children
Motivate families to consent to participate in pregnancy surveillance

Sharing Knowledge Increases Health-Seeking Behavior

Preventing HIV Transmission

A family in a CHAMPS community sought help from traditional healers and nearby medical clinics for their six-month old child who had not been gaining weight. They were unable to determine what was wrong; sadly, she died at home. CHAMPS testing found that the child had HIV and, because of that, was severely malnourished and had bacterial and viral lung infections. A test for HIV early in the mother’s pregnancy was negative, and she had not been tested since. After hearing the investigation results, the mother was tested for HIV and sought treatment. She is now taking medication that will prevent transmission of HIV in future pregnancies.

Improving Enrollment

The Kenya team found that use of a mobile van improved consent rates and timely enrollment of child deaths, including deaths that occur at home or on the way to a health facility. The team travels to communities or nearby health centers where deaths occur. The mobile unit makes the process of CHAMPS enrollment and specimen collection easier for families seeking answers about their child’s death.

Transforming Data into Action

Action

Impact

Public health leaders are using CHAMPS findings to inform health polices, resource allocation, and partner- led interventions that improve maternal and child health.

To address leading causes of deaths at CHAMPS sites, our teams collaborate with local health authorities to:

Intervention: Folic Acid

In Ethiopia, CHAMPS works with the Ministry of Health as it develops locally produced salt fortified with folic acid. Use of the fortified salt could prevent up to 15,800 stillbirths and 2,200 neonatal deaths in Ethiopia annually.

Reference: reference page

Improve antenatal and obstetric services

CHAMPS teams work on increasing demand for antenatal and obstetric services and improving their quality. Better prenatal health screening can ensure early referral to necessary maternal care, timely management of pregnancy complications, and fewer perinatal deaths.

Support infection prevention and control

CHAMPS aims to prevent infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in hospitals through training of health care workers. CHAMPS labs provide testing of neonatal unit environments and antimicrobial resistance testing to ensure children are given effective antimicrobials.

Address malnutrition

CHAMPS teams collaborate with local communities and health care providers to improve detection and management of acute malnutrition. CHAMPS also supports nutrition education programs that aim to improve household food baskets and food preparation.

Leveraging the CHAMPS Platform

CHAMPS Platform

Impact

The CHAMPS platform—experience, infrastructure, and relationships—enables CHAMPS teams to support additional scientific work and respond to emerging health needs. Collectively, the CHAMPS network builds capacity by mentoring scientists, providing feedback to health personnel, and empowering communities to ensure sustainable health improvements.

CHAMPS provides open access, summarized and de-identified data in real time and upon request. We also share data sets and specimens for independent research.

Pivoting to Pandemic Response

In 2020, as SARS-CoV-2 spread across the globe, CHAMPS teams quickly turned their attention and resources to pandemic response. This pivot demonstrated the capacity of our global network to adapt and respond to large-scale public health emergencies.

CHAMPS pathologists and microbiologists offered technical support, operated COVID-19 testing laboratories, trained staff and shared testing equipment with local health facilities and hospitals.
CHAMPS Social Behavioral Science and Community Engagement teams worked with district health officials to conduct community health education on COVID-19 prevention, infection control and treatment options.
By utilizing health and demographic surveillance data from CHAMPS catchment areas, CHAMPS demographers worked with the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa to better understand the global burden of COVID-19 deaths.

Improving Global Health Metrics

Public health officials in many high-mortality areas use verbal autopsy—a series of questions an investigator asks a family—to try to understand why deaths occur. CHAMPS teams in Mozambique and Sierra Leone worked with the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Toronto on Countrywide Mortality Surveillance for Action (COMSA), a program that tracks births, deaths, and causes of death in representative communities using verbal autopsies. Researchers compared the verbal autopsy results to CHAMPS’ accurate findings to refine the cause of death information for the COMSA program.

Addressing New Scientific Questions

Scientific Questions

Impact

CHAMPS supports new lines of scientific inquiry through innovative use of our network.

Questions CHAMPS is investigating include:

Were children who died of malnutrition lacking specific nutrients?

With a new grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CHAMPS will test micronutrient levels in samples from deceased infants and children in six sites in Africa and in pregnant women in Ethiopia and Kenya.

What role do genetic disorders play in early childhood deaths?

CHAMPS is examining DNA and conducting metabolic screening for a subset of early childhood deaths to determine whether congenital disorders are more common than previously thought in high-mortality settings and whether routine screening for such conditions is needed.

Is malaria a significant cause of death in adults?

As people living in high-transmission areas gain immunity over time to the parasites that cause malaria, nearly all deaths from malaria in these areas are thought to occur in children. Recent data have challenged this assumption. CHAMPS is now investigating adult deaths at sites in Sierra Leone and Kenya, areas with high malaria transmission rates, to determine whether malaria contributed to a significant proportion of those deaths.

CHAMPS FINDINGS ON CAUSES OF

Stillbirths & Child Deaths

0 %

Stillbirths

0 %

Neonatal Deaths

0 %

Deaths in Infants & Children Under 5

CHAMPS STORIES

Looking Forward

Inspiring New Leaders

We are excited to implement the CHAMPS Leadership Center initiative. Launched in 2023 in Bangladesh, the Leadership Center aims to direct health and demographic surveillance system activities for the network and provide technical support to CHAMPS sites as they build or improve their local systems.

Our disseminated leadership model aims to place key network positions in CHAMPS countries. A Senior Director for Impact and Engagement is based in South Africa, a Senior Director for Science, Site Strategy, and Implementation in Kenya, and a pathologist based in Nigeria will serve as a technical resource for the network.

Establishing New Sites

In 2023 CHAMPS will establish a site in Karachi, Pakistan, led by partners from Aga Khan University and the University of Texas, Southwestern School of Public Health. By providing information from a second CHAMPS site in South Asia, the Pakistan CHAMPS site will substantially strengthen our understanding of causes of stillbirths and child deaths from the region. CHAMPS is also launching a site in Nigeria, with a catchment in Calabar in the south led by the University of Calabar and a catchment in Bauchi, in northern Nigeria, led by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University.

Expanding Partnerships

CHAMPS teams are working with global partners and public health leaders to ensure they have ready access to CHAMPS data for analysis, policy development, and public health action. Expanding access to CHAMPS’ growing body of results is a high priority for the network. Partners actively using CHAMPS data include:

The National Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research in Bangladesh
The Ethiopia National Public Health Institute
The National Institute of Health in Mozambique
United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation
Respiratory Syncytial Virus Consortium in Europe
Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation
World Health Organization

LOOKING FORWARD

Ongoing Priorities

CHAMPS remains committed to advancing data collection methods, strengthening relationships in the communities where we work, and providing timely and comprehensive cause of death data to shape public health initiatives.

Going forward, CHAMPS will continue to:

Act on CHAMPS findings in collaboration with countries and global health partners to save lives
Collect data that yield unique insights and findings
Support and share findings with CHAMPS families who have lost a child
Promote the use of CHAMPS data for policy decision-making and health systems improvement
Monitor trends in causes of death to guide programs and response
Pursue additional innovative research and high-impact interventions to prevent child mortality

Our Impact

Impact Report 2023

Impact Report 2023

A Message From the CHAMPS Network

CHAMPS By the Numbers

Our Impact