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by Geron Malbas

Master of Public Health (MPH) students earned top placements at the Students for Partners in Health Canada (SPIHC) Global Health Case Competition. Representing the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), the 2nd year students won 1st place, with the 1st year students winning "Best Intervention in the local context" 鈥� these placements were out of 50 total students, or 12 competing teams from different universities.

The team focused on addressing maternal mortality in Sierra Leone through the program called Bridging Care Initiative. The case aimed to tackle key drivers, including low health literacy, lack of timely and appropriate care, and barriers to healthcare access in rural areas.

The 1st year cohort emphasized the local context and what interventions would benefit the women in Sierre Leone the most, while simultaneously addressing deep-rooted systemic barriers stemming from a history of colonialism. 

鈥淭oo often, health practitioners from the global north fail to consider the local context, so prioritized designing an intervention that empowered and recognized the specific and unique needs of the local women,鈥� 1st year MPH student Jeannine Ho explains, who also established the first SPIHC chapter at SFU bringing together students passionate about global health equity. 鈥淲e ensured that the intervention would be culturally-relevant, sustainable, utilized local knowledge, and had ongoing dissemination and community engagement.鈥� 

The 2nd year cohort took a multi-faceted, community-empowered and equity-centered approach, which included applying their health literacy frameworks, program evaluation tools, and culturally safe care strategies to ensure feasibility and sustainability.

鈥淥ur ability to connect theory to practice and anticipate challenges while offering practical solutions strengthened our case,鈥� 2nd year MPH student Ravneet Mundi says. 鈥淲e focused on training healthcare professionals to provide culturally-safe care addressed gaps in skilled birth attendants. The inclusion of learning circles for women created opportunities for peer education, empowerment, and knowledge sharing. Additionally, our comprehensive evaluation strategy, which set clear indicators and milestones for 5, 10, and 15 years, demonstrated long-term impact and accountability.

For the MPH team, the most rewarding part about earning top placements was working with the knowledge and skills from their program to tackling a highly relevant global health issue, and devise culturally safe solutions grounded in equity that concomitantly addressed systemic barriers in maternal health.

I believe the MPH competencies being taught to us through our MPH program at SFU really prepared us for this competition,鈥� 2nd year student Darla Leroux says. 鈥淲e were able to thoughtfully engage in this event and I really enjoyed how each member of our group brought a unique perspective to our work as we all helped build our pitch.

鈥淎lthough we used our knowledge and skills in the classroom and assignments, this experience demonstrated how the concepts we learned could be integrated and applied in a real-world context,鈥� 1st year student Shabnam Raufi concurs. 鈥淚t validated our growth from the beginning of the program, highlighting that we are transitioning from MPH students to emerging public health practitioners.