Global Competition

Yale Students Convene this Saturday at YSPH for 2nd Annual Global Health Case Competition.

Students from around Yale University will convene Saturday at the School of Public health to test their skills and creativity in addressing the aftermath of a well-intentioned public health intervention that went awry.

The second annual Yale Global Health Case Competition on February 15 is expected to draw 109 students from Yale College and eight graduate and professional schools from throughout the university.

Twenty teams consisting of four to six students, and with representation from at least three schools at Yale, will spend this coming week studying a complex global health dilemma: the United Nation’s ongoing response to the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti. Some 8,000 Haitians died as a result of the outbreak and many more were sickened.

On Saturday, the teams are expected to provide recommendations for how the United Nations could have responded differently. The challenge stems from the work done by Yale by the Global Health Justice Partnership, which last year released a 58-page report detailing the U.N.'s responsibility for the epidemic and its inadequate response to it. Teams will then present and defend their proposals in front of a panel of judges consisting of global health professionals, academic researchers and industry experts. These experts include several Yale professors, 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.

Cash prizes from $1,000 to $3,000 will be awarded to the top three teams as well as $500 for the team with the most innovative proposal. The winning team will represent Yale at the international global health case competition hosted by Emory University in Atlanta. Yale’s team last year placed second overall at that competition, which included 24 teams from top universities across the United States and beyond.

Presentations will be open to the public Saturday. The first round will run from 10:40 a.m. to 1 p.m. The final round will start at 1:50 p.m. and end at 3:40 p.m. The awards ceremony will begin at 4 p.m. The competition will be held in Winslow Auditorium, 60 College Street, at the Yale School of Public Health.