Overview

Class Central Tips

- Build alliances in global health using polio eradication as a case study - Discuss the value of and best practices for building alliances in global health - Apply communication and community engagement strategies to disease control program This hands-on course will prepare you to overcome the challenges associated with alliance building within the global health sector. Using The Global Polio Eradication Initiative as a case study, you’ll address the themes of political advocacy, policymaking, health communications, and community engagement, and explore the politics and interpersonal relations required to build a global health program. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is an exemplar of global partnerships between UN agencies, the private sector, non-governmental actors, civil society organizations, and local communities. You’ll learn about the wide variety of stakeholders present throughout the policy and planning processes, and will also get an insight into the challenges that can sometimes occur due to resistance, opposition, and even hostility.

Syllabus

Case Study: Polio Eradication Basics

In this module, we will begin with an overview of the course. To consider strategies for global disease eradication, as a case study, we will cover the basics of poliovirus and polio eradication — the reason that we are doing this is that choosing eradication, rather than control, as a strategy had deep impacts on the way global and community partnerships have played out in the polio program. It's important to understand how the characteristics of a disease, and the strategy chosen to address it, affect everything from global partnerships to local communication strategies. This information will be particularly useful in the coming weeks as we begin to understand how the global initiative came together.

Global Alliance for Public Health

In this module, we will explore the history of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative - how it came together, the key actors involved, and how it has evolved over three decades. This will allow us to consider challenges faced by global health alliances. We will round the week out with strategies for successful alliance building across the global, national, and community levels.

Policy Engagement and Influence

In this module, we will explore the role of policy engagement in a global disease control program. We will begin by understanding the core pillars of the polio eradication effort, then we will dive into the process of health policymaking and its key constructs. You will have a chance to learn about and complete a stakeholder and context analysis - both key tools! We'll round the week out with a roundtable discussion on policy engagement strategies in conflict settings.

Health Communications and Behavior Change

In this module, we will delve into key principles for health communications in supporting a global disease control program. We will begin with understanding the challenge of vaccine derived polioviruses, since that is a major communications challenge for the program. After exploring the basics of communications, we will explore some unintended consequences of communciation plans and strategies experienced by the program.

Community Engagement

In this module, we will begin with exploring approaches for effectively engaging communities, focusing particularly on the example of the Social Mobilization Network in India - a unique and interesting initiative! We will then apply these approaches to different scenarios, considering marginalized populations and conflict settings. We will round the week out with a discussion on applying lessons from polio to non-polio efforts.