World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Community Health and Development

Promoting Health and Development with Global Partners since 2004

KU’s WHO Collaborating Centre received official designation by the World Health Organization in 2004. During these 20 years, the Centre has worked to promote health and development with local and global partners. The WHO CC is part of KU’s Center for Community Health and Development.

As a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre, we work closely with partners in WHO Regional Offices—especially at the WHO Regional Office for the Americas/Pan American Health Organization (Washington, DC) and the WHO Regional Office for Africa (Brazzaville, Congo)—as well as with the World Health Organization Headquarters (Geneva).

For more information, contact Dr. Stephen Fawcett (profile), Co-Director, WHO Collaborating Centre (email: sfawcett@ku.edu).

Mission and Objectives

Our WHO Centre’s mission is to promote community health and development through capacity building, participatory research, and co-learning in a global community.

The WHO Centre at KU has two primary objectives:

Build capacity for community health and development locally and globally using expanded resources of the Community Tool Box (CTB).
Use participatory research methods to expand the evidence base for how communities create conditions that promote health and health equity.

Working in collaboration with partners, we contribute to local and global efforts to promote health, development, and equity.

Some Accomplishments of the WHO CC

Built capacity of African countries to monitor and evaluate and systematically reflect on their COVID-19 response. Carried out in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Africa (Brazzaville, Congo), this led to case studies with country partners of enabling and impeding factors in the response, lessons learned, and recommendations for improvement. See an open-access published report on the WHO AFRO monitoring and evaluation system.
Developed and field-tested an Equity Lens Protocol to guide adjustments in the COVID-19 response to minimize harms for vulnerable populations. Created in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for the Americas/Pan American Health Organization, this resource was shared with partners in the Americas and disseminated through the Community Tool Box. Read more about it in this example on the Community Tool Box website.
Developed and launched the African Health Action Toolkit for addressing social determinants of health and Sustainable Development Goals. A collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Africa, this mobile-friendly tool will also be available in French.
Developed and launched the Healthy Cities Action Toolkit to provide guidance for municipalities and communities to create conditions for health and equity. A collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for the Americas/PAHO, Africa, this mobile-friendly tool is available in Spanish as well as English.
Developed the Western Pacific Community Engagement Toolkit to help support community engagement for health. This was achieved in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific.
Supported monitoring and evaluation of the Ebola response effort in selected communities in Liberia. A collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Africa led to several case studies of what it took to bend the curve with the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in 2014-2015 (e.g., J Community Health available here at DOI.org).
Translated the open-source Community Tool Box into Spanish. Used by over six million unique users in over 200 countries, the CTB contains over 7,000 pages of practical information for community assessment, strategic planning, intervention, evaluation, advocacy, and sustaining the effort.
Translated the open-source Community Tool Box into Arabic. A collaboration with the WHO CC at the American University of Beirut, the Arabic version is 50% complete.
In collaboration with the Pan American Health Association and other regional partners, contributed to the development and launch of the PAHO Guide for Documenting Health Promotion Experiences.
Contributed to the development and launch of the PAHO Virtual Course on Health Promotion, a collaboration among the Pan American Health Organization and regional partners.
Contributed to the development of the WHO Framework for Community Engagement (pdf), a collaboration with the WHO Headquarters’ Health Systems and Innovations Cluster and partners.
Developed a platform for supporting collaborative action on the Sustainable Development Goals by addressing social determinants of health. A collaboration with the WHO Headquarters’ Social Determinants of Health unit, this platform was used to enhance collaboration and coordination among those working on SDH, health in all policies, and SDGs.

Learn about the Tool Box

Follow us on Social Media

Logic Model

This framework outlines the activities, outputs, and intended outcomes of the WHO Collaborating Centre at KU.

Logic Model (pdf) Logic Model (pdf)

Photos from the WHO Collaborating Centre at KUView as gallery page

Through the years, our WHO CC at KU has participated in a global community, working with partners to promote conditions for health, development, and equity. This is a great privilege. We deeply appreciate what we have learned and contributed in service to communities throughout the world.