Institute for Public Health Practice, Research and Policy

This competition is limited to graduate and undergraduate students enrolled at the University of Iowa. Acceptance into the competition is based on overall participation and case logistics. It is at the discretion of the case competition planning committee.

Team composition

• A minimum of one College of Public Health student must be on each team.
• One undergraduate and one graduate student must be on each team.
• Three academic disciplines must be represented.
• No more than two students from the same academic department can be on one team

Students may register as a team or as an individual. Individual registrants will be placed on a team by the case competition planning committee.

• The teams’ case solutions should be innovative yet feasible (i.e., have the potential to be applied in the real world)
• Teams are limited to 3 one-hour meetings with a faculty mentor
• Teams may contact university staff, faculty, or relevant professionals for guidance.
• Members of the Case Writing Team cannot be contacted
• Library and electronic sources are permitted.
• The competition time will be limited to 15 minutes to present, and 10 minutes to answer questions from the judges
• Teams should not discuss their case presentations or the case content with other teams until the judges have completed final scoring.
• Teams should not discuss the case with the case competition planning committee
• Team captains should contact cph-global@uiowa.edu with any questions.

• The competition judges are experts from a variety of disciplines and will critique and evaluate students’ recommendations
• The panel of judges represents a variety of disciplines appropriate to the case topic and mimics the multi-‐sectorial nature of decision­‐making bodies
• Judges will consider the following aspects when evaluating teams’ recommendations:
  • Justification for the recommendations proposed (data and evidence)
  • Creativity and innovation
  • Organization and clarity
  • Delivery (voice, body, eye contact)
  • Judging criteria may also include case-­‐specific information around feasibility, sustainability, and acceptability of the proposed ideas.

Competencies that students will develop through this opportunity include:

• synthesizing information under pressure
• prioritizing issues
• recognizing and working within resource constraints
• working within and appreciating multidisciplinary teams
• integrating various perspectives and methods
• leadership and team negotiation skills
• applying evidence-­‐based decision-­‐making to global health problems