CAMI Health has been building collaborations towards realizing new innovations in contraception and infection prevention since 2001. The organization began as the California Microbicide Initiative in 2001, a California-based coalition-building effort to coordinate and communicate across HIV, contraception, and reproductive justice efforts to advance microbicide development. Founder Bethany Young Holt, PhD, MPH was drawn to comprehensive approaches through her extensive public health work and research work in Africa, the South Pacific, and the United States. Talking to women from across the globe with different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds facing a variety of sexual and reproductive health challenges, confirmed her insight that comprehensive health prevention would more efficiently and effectively address women’s interlinked sexual and reproductive health needs.
An inaugural meeting organized by CAMI Health in 2009 launched the field of multipurpose prevention technologies, or MPTs, which are an innovative class of products that deliver varied combinations of HIV prevention, other STI prevention, and contraception and have the potential to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide. Given the limited resource landscape and technical complexities that situate the MPT field, a product-neutral coordinating body called the IMPT was launched in parallel. As IMPT Secretariat, CAMI Health has managed the development of an effective mechanism for the IMPT to advance the field of MPTs by systematically identifying pressing technical issues and accelerating prudent action by examining evidence, developing guidance, and facilitating critical conversations with appropriate experts across disciplines and sectors.