AfriHealth was started in 2000 by Carel IJsselmuiden (current COHRED director) when he was director of the School of Health Systems and Public Health at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. It was continued when he joined COHRED in 2004. The lack of linkage between public health education and public health research is a major reason for this continued work. AfriHealth is also continued at the University of Pretoria http://afrihealth.up.ac.za/ and was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

This work has resulted in publications, a meeting of African schools of public health, in Arusha in November 2007 and what is probably the first database of schools of public health on the African continent.