Students Compete in Global Health Case Competition.
MPH students KC Caine, Parul Kashyap, Jasmin Choi, and Haley Feazel-Orr competed on a team of Boston University students at the International Emory Global Health Case Competition at Emory University on March 16 and 17 in Atlanta.
The competition brought together 24 multidisciplinary teams from schools in the US and around the world to take on a global health scenario. The teams presented their solutions to a panel of leaders and experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and across the fields of infectious disease and global health.
In this year’s case, the teams had one week to come up with a way to contain an outbreak of a deadly virus during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The BU team branded their case solution as “an equitable solution for global crisis,” Kashyap says, emphasizing equity in prevention and treatment for Qataris, migrant workers, and tourists in the country for World Cup games. The solution took the form of a plan for the Emir, Qatar’s head of state, combining a traditional epidemiological response, emergency operations, and a risk mitigation communications campaign.
“The competition was fierce,” Kashyap says. “We were in awe of the people, the passion, and the sense of urgency in the room.”
The competition illustrated “the benefits of a holistic, collaborative, interdisciplinary team,” says Choi, a dual-degree MSW/MPH student. Team co-captains Kashyap and Caine are both MBA/MPH dual-degree students. A fifth student, Andrew Acevedo from the College of Engineering, rounded out the team.
“Our team was lucky to have epidemiological and social work experts who looked at the solution from a clinical and social equity lenses, an engineering expert who brought in design and technical implementation lenses, and business experts who connected the solutions from marketing, economics, finance, and communications lenses,” Kashyap says. “We realized these interdisciplinary skills and insights are very much needed if there were truly an infectious disease outbreak at a global mass gathering.”