Mission
Based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, the Center for Integration Science in Global Health Equity develops integrated health care delivery models and nurtures integrated social movements to advance global health equity.
Together with Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique, the Center also serves as the co-secretariat of the NCDI Poverty Network, an international partnership of health leaders in low- and lower-middle-income countries and their advocacy, policy, funding, and technical partners.
A major Network focus is the implementation of PEN-Plus, an integrated care-delivery model that brings health care close to home for people living with severe, chronic noncommunicable diseases—such as type 1 diabetes, sickle cell disease, and childhood heart disease—in rural, resource-scarce areas of sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean.
PEN-Plus—already initiated in 29 countries and implemented in 16—is the most advanced application of integration science. Yet the model’s remarkable success in such a short time illustrates the tremendous potential that the integration science field has for solving other seemingly intractable health care challenges. The Center continues to build the scientific foundation for integrating health care delivery models and social movements to create practicable strategies to achieve global health equity.
“Integration science is the missing link between evidence-based interventions, health-sector-priority setting, and implementation.”