Christy Turlington - Humanitarian Activities

Humanitarian Activities

In 2005 Turlington began working with the international humanitarian organization CARE and has since become their Advocate for Maternal Health. She is also an Ambassador for Product Red.

After suffering complications in her own 2003 childbirth, and upon learning that over 500,000 women die each year during childbirth (of which 90% of the deaths are preventable), Turlington was inspired to pursue a Masters degree in Public Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Turlington visited Africa (Swaziland in May 2007) on behalf of Product Red, and Latin America (El Salvador in 2005 and Peru in 2008) on behalf of CARE. Her involvement with CARE was influenced by her mother Elizabeth, who has been a longtime CARE supporter through her former flight attendants’ organization, World Wings. The FEMME project, a coming together of CARE, Columbia University, and local government, brings health-care practitioners together to find better methods of serving the large number of women needing assistance who are too intimidated to seek help in a clinic or traditional hospital.

In September 2010 Turlington participated in a CARE Learning Tour to Ethiopia to investigate the work being done to reduce maternal deaths.

Turlington currently serves on the Harvard Medical School Global Health Council, and as an advisor to the Harvard School of Public Health Board of Dean’s Advisors, She is a member of White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and Mother’s Day Every Day

An ex-smoker whose father died of lung cancer, Turlington is an anti-smoking activist.