CEIHD was founded in 2000 in the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. In 2008, CEIHD spun its operations out into a new and independent nonprofit. Since our inception we have been creating a body of evidence and experience about economically and culturally appropriate systems that can be successfully scaled up. Scale is where the challenge lies for population-level impacts in the coming decades, especially for rural and peri-urban communities.

We use concepts and methods drawn from business, finance, and economics to complement evidence from clinical and field research in finding solutions.  We describe, design and promote financially sustainable systems that employ the skills and knowledge of local entrepreneurs as partners and eventual owners of this process.