Center for Health Services Research and Development

The Center for Health Services Research and Development (CHSR) is an applied research and development center located within the College of Health Sciences, Department of Public Health at the American University of Armenia (AUA). The CHSR was established in 1995 to respond to the region's research and development needs in the multidisciplinary field of public health. The recent Zvart Onanian endowment better positions the CHSR to succeed in its mission.

One of the CHSR's principle objectives is to provide supervised field training opportunities for students enrolled in the AUA Public Health Program. As such, visiting faculty members in the Department of Public Health play an active role in the center. MPH program graduates comprise the CHSR core staff and facilitate the integration of students into ongoing projects. Students have played integral roles in many of the center's projects, including a recent evaluative survey on family planning and contraceptive practices, quality of care assessments of a major medical facility, and national surveys on infant mortality, breastfeeding practices, and the treatment of acute respiratory infections, as well as in the development and evaluation of a booklet to promote healthy practices for pregnant women.

The CHSR's second objective is to provide its expertise as a resource to support and facilitate the existing public health infrastructure in Armenia. This objective is primarily achieved by serving as a venue for linkages between the Ministry of Health, donor agencies, and the expertise of the center's staff to support, develop, and implement research and project planning and development initiatives.

Recent efforts have included such diverse projects as the CHSR-led evaluation of a pilot project restructuring pediatric primary care; a policy analysis of existing data on the epidemiology of Hepatitis B infection, which enabled the Ministry of Health and international donor organizations to make an informed policy decision regarding the Hepatitis B immunization schedule; and technical support and training of policlinic staff, which enabled them to conduct a health assessment of the municipality of Sevan and its surrounding villages.

Launched in 1999 with a gift from the Meghrigian family, the Garo Meghrigian Eye Institute for Preventive Ophthalmology seeks to minimize the burden of blindness and eye diseases in Armenia. In partnership with local experts, the Garo Meghrigian Eye Institute for Preventive Ophthalmology seeks to assess and characterize the burden of eye diseases in Armenia, to promote preventive activities such as screenings, to develop professional and public awareness of the problem through education programs, and to foster development of the local health system's capacity to effectively identify and prevent vision disorders before they lead to blindness. The Garo Meghrigian Eye Institute for Preventive Ophthalmology is housed in the new AUA Center.

The CHSR is housed in the main AUA complex, where it conducts research and development activities with the support of modern computers, international telecommunication links, sophisticated statistical software packages, and the international experts who collaborate with the public health program at AUA. The CHSR is well known, both within and outside Armenia, as an outstanding regional resource that ably combines the principles of rigorous, methodologically sound research, with the need to provide policy-makers with pragmatic information that will allow them to formulate effective policies.