Over 100 Students Compete in Annual Global Health Competition at Yale
A cholera outbreak in Haiti just a few years ago has killed more than 8,000 unsuspecting people and made countless others sick.
The deadly epidemic continues to exacerbate conditions in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated the capital region of Port-au-Prince. It turned out that the disease, spread through contaminated water, was inadvertently introduced by United Nations’ troops who were helping with recovery efforts in Haiti.
Can a tragedy on the magnitude of what happened in Haiti be avoided in the future? Can cholera be eradicated in a country that faces severe economic challenges. And how should the United Nations be held accountable for what happened?
Twenty teams comprised of 109 Yale students from throughout the university—undergraduates and graduates from eight schools—gathered over the weekend at the Yale School of Public Health for the second annual Global Health Case Competition to present their action plans on the highly complex health problem to a panel of judges from Yale and beyond.
A workable solution involves input from many disciplines—epidemiology, field-based public health practice, governance, international and humanitarian law, business and finance and international relations, said Ryan Boyko, a Ph.D. student at the School of Public Health and an organizer of this year’s event. The teams also had to craft solutions that balanced the needs of many different actors for a public health challenge that has never really been solved before.
By the end of the daylong competition Saturday, a team consisting of four students, Raja Narayan (YSPH), Michael Zucker (YLS), Christopher Lee (YLS) and Samir Zaidi (YSM), emerged with the winning approach. They will travel to Atlanta next month to participate in an international case competition hosted by Emory University.
Narayan said that his team discovered that the Haitian Ministry of Health had already devised a plan of its own to eradicate cholera. They studied it closely and identified its strengths and weaknesses. The team incorporated aspects of it, along with possible improvements such as the use of innovative technologies to improve results and creative budgeting strategies to reduce costs.
Each of the teams were given the same problem one week before the formal presentations. The winning team was able to meet only three times in the intervening days, but crafted a 58-page presentation complete with detailed tables that laid out timelines, estimated costs and action plans. The students also recommended that the United Nations take responsibility for the cholera outbreak, publicly apologize and hold an accompanying news conference in Haiti. Additionally, they called for a claims process be created to ensure justice for affected Haitians.
“Everyone was exceptionally diligent in researching their assigned topics,” Naryan said of his team. “When we met, we worked quickly and methodically to identify strategies that appeared to present the most robust approach for eradicating cholera. We debated among ourselves often but made sure that we never dwelled on issues that were not integral to the establishment of our final plan.”
The judges included Yale professors, members of nongovernmental organizations and former U.N. officials who have worked extensively in Haiti, such as Yale Professors Gary Desir and Gordon Geballe, Emily Dally from Partners in Health and Jessica Faieta, Yale World Fellow and the former U.N. Development Program country director for Haiti.
Yale School of Public Health Dean Paul D. Cleary said that the competition is another indication of the strong and growing interest that Yale students have in promoting global health.
“I am absolutely delighted that our students are learning to work effectively in collaborative teams on issues as complex as cholera in Haiti,” Cleary said. “Addressing this critical public health issue and thinking through how to influence the way the United Nations responds to such situations in the future is exactly the kind of challenge we want our students to learn how to address in interdisciplinary teams. This is not unlike many of the situations our student will have to address in the future and it is reassuring to see them developing the skills for doing this kind of complex work.”
The winning team received a cash prize $3,000. The team that finished second received $2,000 and the third place team was awarded $1,000. The team with the most innovate proposal received $500.
Along with Boyko, Javier Cepeda and Hilary Rogers organized this year’s competition. All three students belonged to the winning team in the first competition (which addressed the problem of health and violence in South Africa’s mining industry). The team went on to capture second place at the international competition in 2013.
Gregg Gonsalves, a Ph.D. student at the School of Public Health and one of this year’s judges, said that the breadth of students who participated in Saturday’s competition impressed him.
“The teams were uniformly excellent,” he said. “With only a week's preparation, the teams put together polished and professional presentations. Though [Yale] came in second last year at the competition at Emory, I wouldn’t be surprised if we took the gold this year in Atlanta!”