Publications
This case traces the development of the voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) campaign in Nyanza Province, Kenya as it transformed from the subject of a randomized clinical trial into national policy. After providing some background on the cultural, political, and scientific context surrounding male circumcision, the case traces the PEPFAR-funded implementers' advances in delivering male circumcision in Nyanza. It examines the various delivery models used in Nyanza and the evolution of the relationship between implementers as well as on the development of the national strategic plan for VMMC released in 2009. The case ends with the implementers having come together successfully for two rapid, aggressive, 30-day implementation campaigns and the head of Kenya's National AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections Control Programme wrestling with how to make such campaigns sustainable and what lessons from the campaign to pass on to the national program. This is a condensed version of the case Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in Nyanza Province, Kenya.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Learning Objectives: To understand how a randomized controlled trial may be translated into a large-scale public health program; how a surgical campaign was designed and implemented for rapid impact; the role of national and international collaboration in large-scale health delivery; and the ethical tradeoffs that arise in large-scale public health programs.
Supporting Content: This is a condensed version of the case Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in Nyanza Province, Kenya.
Keywords: Project management, AIDS, policy, supply and demand, partnerships, strategy, innovation
This concept note provides an overview of malnutrition, including its definition, causes, and management related to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. It also describes the state of global malnutrition, including national and international efforts to reduce malnutrition and the stakeholders involved.
Learning Objectives: To further students’ and instructors’ understanding of malnutrition-related concepts presented in the Global Health Delivery (GHD) Case Collection (e.g., GHD-031: Reducing Child Malnutrition in Maharashtra, India).
Keywords: Maternal and child health, children, intergenerational disease, public-private partnership, nutrition, strategy, political leadership, scale-up, community health workers, health care delivery, malnutrition, cross-sector collaboration
This case demonstrates what it takes to address a chronic, intergenerational public health issue. It explores the drivers behind the reduction of malnutrition in Maharashtra State, India, from 2001–2013. Specifically, the case examines the strategies and management decisions of leaders of the government-established Rajmata Jijau Mother-Child Health and Nutrition Mission as they worked to reduce the incidence of malnutrition in children and women through a multi-sectoral collaborative approach.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Stunting Syndrome from Conception through Adulthood. Dark blue denotes the period between conception and 2 years (‘the first 1000 days’) when interventions are most effective. Light blue denotes the time period between 2 years and mid-childhood and during the adolescent growth spurt when some catch-up in linear growth may occur. The light blue period before Conceptus reflects evidence that dietary interventions targeting stunted women pre-conception improve birth outcomes. Gray denotes periods when the stunting syndrome appears unresponsive to interventions. Dashed line–a stunted child whose environment becomes more affluent with abundant access to food, causing excessive weight gain; solid line–a stunted child whose environment remains resource-constrained/food insecure. Source: Adapted by case writers with assistance from Isabelle Celentano from Pendergast AJ, Humphrey JH. “The stunting syndrome in developing countries,” Paediatr Int Child Health. 2014;34(4):250-265; doi:10.1179/2046905514Y.0000000158.
Learning Objectives: A productive class discussion will allow students to appreciate how to configure specific interventions and indicators to ameliorate and measure malnutrition for a local setting; the complexity and importance of crafting policies and generating political will across sectors in support of nutrition programs; and the role of a strong community workforce in enabling nutrition programs to reach the target population.
Keywords: Maternal and child health, children, intergenerational disease, public-private partnership, nutrition, strategy, political leadership, scale-up, community health workers, health care delivery, malnutrition, cross-sector collaboration
Set in Neno District, Malawi from 2007–2012, the case focuses on the economic impact of investing in health care infrastructure. It examines management decisions that leaders of Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU) and its founding organization—Partners In Health (PIH)—made as they supported the Government of Malawi in building a hospital and scaling up the delivery of APZU clinical and social programs across Neno district. The case highlights how a non-governmental organization can navigate the politics and local culture to improve Malawi’s health care system in close partnership with a strong, protocol-driven government. The case begins with Ophelia Dahl, co-founder and executive director of Partners In Health, reflecting on her December 2011 trip to Neno, nearly four years after her first visit. She observed signs of progress unrelated to health—bank branches had opened in town, a new road had been built, and the market had expanded dramatically. Ultimately, the case explores what this demonstrates about the value of her organization’s investments in health.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Learning Objectives: To understand the challenges of hiring and retaining local and expat staff, the complexity of an international NGO partnering with the government to improve health care, how leadership acumen and approaches impact scaling up and sustaining health care delivery, the relationship between the district hospital and the local economy, and how to assess impact beyond health measures.
Keywords: Global health, social equality, project management, business and government relations, partnerships, strategy, economic development, health care policy, health care delivery, public health, human resource management, developing countries, innovation
This case focuses on how loveLife, South Africa's largest youth-focused nongovernmental organization, recovered from losing one-third of its operating revenues in 2006 when the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria chose not to renew funding to South Africa. The case describes managers' decisions to downsize and secure additional government funding to save the organization and the ways in which the original strategy guided these changes. The case ends in 2009 with loveLife's new chief executive officer contemplating how to secure the organization's future amid national political changes and funding challenges.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
loveLife Program Coverage, 2007. Source: loveLife. (Exhibit 6 from "loveLife: Transitions After 2005" case.)
Learning Objectives: To appreciate how crises can impact program management and activities, the role of leadership in responding to crises, the benefits of second generation leadership for an organization, and the implications of transitioning from international funding sources to domestic government funding sources.
Supporting Content: This case is a sequel to loveLife: Preventing HIV Among South African Youth.
Keywords: National strategy, impact of financing, HIV prevention, leadership, sustainability
Set in Karachi, Pakistan, this case examines a private hospital's potential to impact health in a resource-constrained setting. Within Pakistan's health care system and its political, socioeconomic, and epidemiological context, the case focuses on the Indus Hospital, a charity hospital started in 2007. The case explores the effect of financing, leadership, and a mission-driven culture on health care delivery and the hospital's efforts to provide high-quality care for free to poor patients. It concludes with Indus' leaders planning how to expand their service delivery to include primary and preventative care.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Learning Objectives: To understand a private hospital's potential to impact health in a resource-constrained setting, how private financing impacts health care delivery, and the impact of leadership on health care delivery.
Supporting Content: There is a shorter version of this case titled The Indus Hospital: Building Surgical Capacity in Pakistan (Condensed Version).
Keywords: Human rights, workforce management, sustainability, role of civil society, information systems, organizational culture
This case traces the development of the voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) campaign in Nyanza Province, Kenya as it transformed from the subject of a randomized clinical trial into national policy. After providing some background on the cultural, political, and scientific context surrounding male circumcision, the case traces the PEPFAR-funded implementers' advances in delivering male circumcision in Nyanza. It examines the various delivery models used in Nyanza and the evolution of the relationship between implementers as well as on the development of the national strategic plan for VMMC released in 2009. The case ends with the implementers having come together successfully for two rapid, aggressive, 30-day implementation campaigns and the head of Kenya's National AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections Control Programme wrestling with how to make such campaigns sustainable and what lessons from the campaign to pass on to the national program.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Learning Objectives: To understand how a randomized controlled trial may be translated into a large-scale public health program; how a surgical campaign was designed and implemented for rapid impact; the role of national and international collaboration in large-scale health delivery; and the ethical tradeoffs that arise in large-scale public health programs.
Supporting Content: There is a shorter version of this case titled Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in Nyanza Province, Kenya (Condensed Version).
Keywords: Project management, AIDS, policy, supply and demand, partnerships, strategy, innovation
This case reviews the changes in national policy and the subsequent interventions used to reduce the incidence of malaria in Zambia from 2005 to 2010. After providing contextual information on Zambia-including historical, demographic, social, and health information-the case delves into the history of malaria control efforts worldwide and in Zambia. Though Zambia was at the forefront of malaria control-changing policy, adopting new treatment, and aggressively pursuing comprehensive malaria control efforts-in the early 2000s, by 2005 the Zambian government was still falling short of its targets. The National Malaria Control Center (NMCC) resolved to intensify its efforts by developing one national plan to improve coordination, data collection, and partner involvement, and ultimately, to scale up interventions rapidly in order to meet the national malaria targets. The new NMCC director, Dr. Elizabeth Chizema, guided the program toward success through several key interventions described in the case. With basic improvements in monitoring and evaluation, Chizema could demonstrate progress in malaria control. Nonetheless, she worried that partners might lose interest in helping Zambia given the decreasing burden even though the program still had many challenges to overcome.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Learning Objectives: To understand the development of a successful malaria control program over time and the components that led to its success, including the value of setting bold national goals, the merits of a health system with centralized governance and decentralized implementation, the importance of multiple coordinated interventions as opposed to a "silver bullet" approach for malaria control, and the use of data as an outcome measure, planning tool, and fundraising tool.
Supporting Content: There is a shorter version of this case titled Malaria Control in Zambia (Condensed Version).
Keywords: National strategy, supply chain management, malaria eradication and control, leadership
After outlining the history of malaria in Swaziland, this focused case study examines the implementation of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria in Swaziland to improve case management and to strengthen the national malaria surveillance system as the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) aims to implement a national elimination strategy. In addition to information on RDT selection, the case details Swaziland's quality assurance program-the first of its kind in the region, the public health benefits of the immediate disease notification system for active case detection, and Simon Kunene's leadership qualities as the manager of the NMCP for 24 years. The case addresses the necessary increases in financing and human resources to support the strategy and evaluates the impact of RDTs on the strategy. Challenges the NMCP faces in achieving malaria elimination include sustaining political will, interest, and financial commitments from donors and strengthening health workforce training and RDT procurement and distribution.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Milestones toward Malaria Elimination. Source: The Global Malaria Action Plan: For a malaria-free world. Roll Back Malaria Partnership, 2008. (Exhibit 4 from "Roll-Out of Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Malaria in Swaziland" case.
Learning Objectives: To understand the role of diagnostics in a malaria elimination strategy, what it takes to effectively integrate a new diagnostic into care delivery, how leaders generate social and political capital over time, and the intricacies of managing a national disease program.
Keywords: National strategy, supply chain management, diagnostic testing strategies, malaria eradication and control
Thailand’s 100% Condom Program, which was implemented nationwide in 1991, is widely credited with averting a generalized HIV epidemic in that nation. This case traces the development and implementation of Thailand’s 100% Condom Program including its conception, the development of a pilot program in one province, and the program’s early regional expansion. It frames these events within the country’s general political, economic, and health situation; the epidemiology and public perception of HIV/AIDS; the government’s early HIV policy; and the economics of the commercial sex industry. The case explores how public health interventions are designed, refined, and spread. The case ends in early 1991 with the program’s founder trying to find ways to spread the successful regional program nationwide.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Sex establishments in Patpong Area, including go-go bars and members clubs. Source: "HIV in Thailand: The 100% Condom Program" case.
Learning Objectives: To understand the principles behind the design of disease prevention programs and to examine how successful programs align incentives among various stakeholders to achieve their objectives.
Supporting Content: This case has a supplementary summary of history and next steps, titled The 100% Condom Program: Part B.
Keywords: HIV prevention, stakeholder alignment, harm reduction
This document supplements HIV in Thailand: the 100% Condom Program and recounts the eventual nationwide adoption of that program and its impact on HIV in Thailand.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
HIV and AIDS Projections, 1985-2020. Source: Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Health (projections based on data up to 2003). (Exhibit 6 from the "HIV in Thailand: The 100% Condom Program" case.)
Learning Objectives: To examine the national spread of a regional disease prevention program and evaluate its impact.
Supporting Content: This document supplements HIV in Thailand: the 100% Condom Program.
Keywords: HIV prevention, stakeholder alignment, harm reduction
This case reviews the policy changes in tobacco control in post-apartheid South Africa from 1994 to 1996 under the leadership of Minister of Health Dr. Nkosazana Zuma. After providing contextual information on South Africa, including historical, demographic, social, and health information, the case delves into the history of tobacco and of global tobacco control efforts. The case then details the history of tobacco in South Africa, including data collection, epidemiology, early control efforts, and the policy efforts of the mid-1990s. The case describes the African National Congress (ANC)’s policy victories under Zuma’s leadership. Knowing that tobacco disproportionately affected certain racial and minority groups, Zuma made tobacco control a top priority. With the support of the President, local tobacco experts, and anti-tobacco advocates, Zuma worked hard to break previous connections between the government and the tobacco industry and to reduce smoking. The case ends in 1996 when smoking prevalence had declined to 32% from 34% in 1995, but South Africa still had one of the highest levels in the developing world. As the ANC was preparing to enact the new Constitution that reinforced health promotion, Zuma had to determine what her next move would be for tobacco control and how she would prioritize it with the other health needs of the country.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Tobacco Control as Health Promotion. Source: Reddy, SP and Swart D. Unraveling Health Promotion: A Framework for Action: Tobacco Control. MRC: 1998. (Exhibit 8 in "Tobacco Control in South Africa" case.)
Learning Objectives: To understand the political and economic forces that impact tobacco control legislation in a country undergoing an epidemiological shift, the role of research and data, and the value of health communication, chronic disease prevention, and advocacy in health care delivery.
Supporting Content: This case has a supplementary summary of history and next steps, titled Tobacco Control in South Africa: Next Steps.
Keywords: Chronic disease prevention, advocacy, health policy, tobacco control
This case is a supplement to Tobacco Control in South Africa, which reviews the policy changes in tobacco control in post-apartheid South Africa from 1994 to 1996 under the leadership of Minister of Health Dr. Nkosazana Zuma. This case explains what happened after 1996, the steps Zuma took to continue her fight against tobacco (including expanding research capacity, getting increases in excise taxes passed, and pushing national legislation through) and what happened after her departure in 1999.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Relationship between Excise Tax Rate and Cigarette Consumption in South Africa. Source: van Walbeek C, WHO. Tobacco Excise Taxation in South Africa. (Exhibit 2 in "Tobacco Control in South Africa: Next Steps" case.)
Learning Objectives: To understand the political and economic forces and the role of research and data in implementing tobacco control legislation in a country undergoing an epidemiological shift, and the value of health communication, chronic disease prevention, and advocacy in health care delivery.
Supporting Content: This case is the supplement to Tobacco Control in South Africa.
Keywords: Chronic disease prevention, advocacy, health policy, tobacco control
This case describes the strategy of the nongovernmental organization (NGO), loveLife, to prevent HIV among South African youth in the face of the world’s largest HIV epidemic, youth culture in post-apartheid South African, and a national government hostile to HIV/AIDS programs. The case traces loveLife from its inception and rapid scale up in 1999 to 2005, when loveLife lost one-third of its operating budget after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) chose not to renew its second phase of funding. This case documents loveLife’s strategy in scaling up and sustaining delivery of HIV prevention services at scale. A short, optional case coda describes loveLife’s restructuring and positioning after the Global Fund crisis up to 2009.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Examples of loveLife media. Source: loveLife. (Exhibit 10 from "loveLife: Preventing HIV Among South African Youth" case.)
Learning Objectives: To learn the application of strategic thinking in HIV prevention using Michael Porter’s “Five Tests of a Good Strategy” and to understand the organizational changes required in transitioning from scaling up to operating at scale.
Supporting Content: This case has a supplementary summary of history and next steps titled loveLife: preventing HIV among South African youth (Part B). There is also an additional sequel, loveLife: Transitions After 2005.
Keywords: Demand generation, scale up, sustaining delivery at scale, HIV prevention among youth, strategy, stigma
This case describes the strategy of the nongovernmental organization (NGO), loveLife, to prevent HIV among South African youth in the face of the world’s largest HIV epidemic, youth culture in post-apartheid South African, and a national government hostile to HIV/AIDS programs. The case traces loveLife from its inception and rapid scale up in 1999 to 2005, when loveLife lost one-third of its operating budget after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) chose not to renew its second phase of funding. This case documents loveLife’s strategy in scaling up and sustaining delivery of HIV prevention services at scale. A short, optional case coda describes loveLife’s restructuring and positioning after the Global Fund crisis up to 2009.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
HIV Incidence among 15-20-year-old South Africans, 2002-2008. Source: Rehle T, Hallett T, Shisana O, et al. A Decline in New HIV Infections in South Africa: Estimating HIV Incidence from Three National HIV Surveys in 2002, 2005 and 2008. PloS one. 2010;5(6):e11094. (Exhibit 2 from "loveLife: preventing HIV among South African youth" case.)
Learning Objectives: To learn the application of strategic thinking in HIV prevention using Michael Porter’s “Five Tests of a Good Strategy” and to understand the organizational changes required in transitioning from scaling up to operating at scale.
Supporting Content: This case is the supplement to loveLife: Preventing HIV Among South African Youth.
Keywords: Demand generation, scale up, sustaining delivery at scale, HIV prevention among youth, strategy, stigma
This case is the second in a two-part series describing the Avahan Indian AIDS Initiative (Avahan), a large-scale HIV prevention delivery program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation). The case examines Avahan's choice of intervention strategies in the face of the HIV epidemic of India in 2002. It describes Avahan's structure, operations, and execution style, as well as how Avahan's management system for its seven "state lead partners" and 137 district-level nongovernmental organizations was applied initially to scale and later to sustain the delivery model. The case ends with Avahan's director planning to transfer program ownership to the Government of India.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Examples of Microplanning Tools Developed by Avahan SLPs. Source: Created by case writers. (Exhibit 10 "The Avahan India AIDS Initiative: Managing Targeted HIV Prevention at Scale" case.)
Learning Objectives: To understand the strategies needed to deliver HIV prevention services at scale; how the configuration of management activities can enable rapid scale up of HIV prevention programming; and how these management activities must evolve to sustain delivery at scale.
Keywords: Management and operations, HIV prevention, transferring large-scale programs to government ownership, scaling up, sustainability, strategy
This case describes the Brazilian National AIDS Program's strategy in the late 2000s to prevent HIV infections. The case is set against the context of a heterogeneous, concentrated epidemic and decentralized public health system that guaranteed access to care and treatment. The case traces the nation's response to HIV from the late 1980s through 2009 via a human rights framework, highlighting the cooperation with civil society. Readers are challenged to understand the relationships between HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, decentralization and sustainability.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Decentralization Policy M&E Indicators. Source: National Department of STD, AIDS and Viral Hepatitis. (Exhibit 14 from "HIV/AIDS in Brazil: Delivering Prevention in a Decentralized Health System" case.)
Learning Objectives: Students should understand the tradeoffs involved in a decentralized governance structure, the levers a central government department can pull to influence local health care delivery in a decentralized health system, and how civil society advocacy contributes to program sustainability.
Keywords: Human rights, HIV prevention, Sustainability, Role of civil society, Strategy
This case focuses on the establishment of the Olyset® Consortium—a public-private partnership that was created to facilitate the manufacture of long-lasting insecticidal bed nets to prevent malaria infection in sub-Saharan Africa—and A to Z Textile Mills (“A to Z”), the manufacturer of the nets in Arusha, Tanzania. The case examines how the public-private partnership was developed, its use of an incentive-based supply chain, A to Z’s business model and impact, and the sustainability of the venture. The case reveals that despite significant success in attaining objectives, the misaligned incentives of the many partners presented major obstacles to the overall sustainability of A to Z’s Olyset® production line.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
Long Lasting Insecticide Nets and Olyset Production Process. Source: A to Z Textile Mills Ltd., Arusha, Tanzania (Case Exhibit 9).
Learning Objectives: To understand the potential for public-private partnerships to leverage innovation and scalability from the private sector and quality and equitable access from the public sector and to examine the costs and benefits of local manufacturing of technologically complex global health commodities in resource-limited settings.
Keywords: Public-private partnerships, incentive-based supply chain, global health commodity manufacturing, malaria prevention
The case examines Avahan's delivery model for targeted HIV prevention in India within a value-based framework by describing an implementing nongovernmental organization's district level activities. After providing information about the epidemiological, organizational, and political context, the case shows how the nongovernmental organization, Muslim Samaj Prabodhan Va Shikshan Sanstha (MSPSS), is able to tailor a set of activities to match the needs of its target communities under the guidance of one of Avahan's six "state lead partners," Mukta, which is contracted to recruit and manage grantee NGOs. Through a detailed description of MSPSS' activities, the case examines how high-value, comprehensive HIV preventive services can be delivered to a high-risk population. The case ends with MSPSS's leaders challenged to preserve the value of the program as they prepare to transition the program to government ownership.
Teaching Note available through Harvard Business Publishing.
MSPSS Ceremony Honoring Female Police Officer. Source: MSPSS. (Exhibit 19 from "HIV Prevention in Maharashtra, India " case.)
Learning Objectives: To understand the role of strategy in health care delivery through an examination of how HIV prevention programs generate value for the populations they serve through their selection and configuration of program activities.
Keywords: Marginalized populations, targeted interventions, strategy, HIV prevention