Health

A lifetime of good health begins in childhood.

Improved health among children and their families means working with our local partners to strengthen community-based services, promote healthy behaviors and foster resilient health systems that sustain those health gains for good.

Poor health is both a cause and consequence of poverty. Children in low-resource settings are especially vulnerable, facing preventable disease and stunted growth, which can affect health and development throughout life. Inadequate health care systems and not having access to clean water and nutritious food all lead to poor health outcomes, but ChildFund addresses them together, at multiple levels: in the home, in the community, in schools and within health systems. Treating any one factor in isolation doesn't work.

ChildFund’s health programing:

• Supports women through safe pregnancies and births so that infants and young children have a strong start in life.
• Improves access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene—the foundations to every other health outcome.
• Reduces malnutrition during critical periods of growth and development, when what a child eats shapes who they can become.
• Protects children, pregnant women and communities from preventable illness, including malaria and tuberculosis.
• Helps young people to make informed decisions about their health while expanding access to essential services.

Our locally led approaches address the conditions that most directly shape whether children survive, thrive and reach their potential. ChildFund protects children's right to health — not as an end in itself, but as the foundation for everything else we want for them: learning, safety, dignity and the chance to shape their own futures.