Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health was awarded three grants to prevent and treat chronic diseases through an initiative by UnitedHealth Group and the National Institutes of Health to help developing countries.

UnitedHealth Group and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, one of the departments of the NIH, are creating Collaborating Centers of Excellence, or COEs, awarding contracts totaling more than $34 million through the effort.

Each COE is lead by a research institution in a low- to middle-income developing country paired with at least one partner academic institution to enhance research and training opportunities, according to a statement on the initiative. Centers will be located across the globe, including China, Kenya, South Africa and Tunisia, with funding from the NHLBI and Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth Group’s Chronic Disease Initiative.

The NHLBI awarded five-year contracts totaling nearly $26 million to create the centers with several research institutions. Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health will coordinate efforts at three centers, located in Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Peru.

In addition, the NGLBI awarded a six-year, $8.8 million contract to Westat of Rockville, Md., to serve as administrative coordinator for the COEs.

The centers will conduct research tailored to their local or regional needs to reduce the burden of chronic diseases, including heart disease, heart failure, stroke, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Each center will also foster the training and mentoring of emerging scientists, physicians and other health professionals, and/or community health workers in collaboration with their partner institutions.

“Unless we make chronic disease prevention a worldwide priority, the personal, social, economic, and political consequences will reverberate throughout the globe,” said Simon Stevens, president of global health at UnitedHealth Group, in a statement.  “The time has come to increase resources to counter the pandemic of chronic disease sweeping through low- and middle-income countries.”