Global Public Health Innovations (GPHI)

Global Public Health Innovations (GPHI) focuses on initiatives aimed at improving lives through empowering individuals and communities. GPHI's principal goal is to develop and support social responsibility initiatives that make tangible differences for people and the communities where they live. Our approach is to analyze successes and failures in order to provide services that deliver expected outcomes based on individual and community needs and goals.

Why Public Health?

Global Public Health Innovations (GPHI) is much more than a corporation dedicated to resolving "health" challenges. Public health is more than the impact of a disease on the body; it recognizes that "disease" may take many forms. It may take the form of an illness such as influenza, a condition such as malnourishment or obesity, or a social problem such as violence, and may manifest in other ways.

Moreover, public health is not simply interested in cures, but rather in causes and in targeting these causes as a way of removing and preventing the challenges at hand. GPHI uses the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) and World Health Organizations (WHO) four-level social-ecological model to better understand the challenges faced by individuals and communities throughout the world; including their social determinants of health view that economic and social conditions – and their distribution among the population – influence individual and group differences in health status. Based on this understanding, GPHI conducts capacity and vulnerability assessments and designs strategies to meet identified challenges.

The four level social-ecological model highlights the need to understand the complex interplay among the individual, the individual's relationships with his immediate surrounding (i.e., peers, partners and family members), the individual's role within the community (i.e., schools, workplaces and neighborhoods) and the general societal factors that affect the individual (i.e., social and cultural norms, health, economic, educational and social policies). GPHI's strategies include a continuum of activities that address multiple levels of the social-ecological model.

Why Capacity Building?

At Global Public Health Innovations (GPHI), our global vision is to support, through capacity building and side-by-side consultations, the development of sustainable local initiatives to ensure the public's health and economic sustainability, and support social cohesion. We believe that acquiring new knowledge and skills empowers individuals and communities. This empowerment leads to stronger social cohesion that can, in turn, serve to support the creation and sustainability of societies that are economically viable, safe, peaceful and healthy. All of GPHI's 360° Innovations – the Nutrition, Village and Urban Innovations - achieve these key principles through working with communities in multiple scenarios on aspects ranging from violence reduction to nutrition (i.e., malnourishment, obesity, etc.) and disease.

For decades, assistance programs for the marginalized and impoverished have been judged by intentions, not by results. Many assistance programs are perpetuated and expanded not because they have succeeded, but because providing aid still seems like a good idea. These assistance programs focus on providing aid, rather than empowering people to support and sustain their communities themselves. GPHI's vision supports disadvantaged communities and respects human rights and individual dignity while providing each individual within the community with equal opportunity.

The GPHI team has particular expertise in working in unstable and politically fragile social environments, with experiences ranging from conflict zones in the developing world to inner cities in the western world and from mega cities to rural zones. This vast range of experience and expertise is combined to support and empower individuals and communities to develop solutions, identify challenges and create new opportunities for themselves. We are committed to accountable and innovative outcomes with measurable improvements that truly meet the local community and its people's needs and expectations. GPHI's approach is not "cookie-cutter" or "one-size-fits-all," but unique to each individual and community.