The Public Health Olympics
2014
This fictional case imagines how the Olympics Games could provide both positive economic benefits and transformative public health effects to its host city. The new IOC President wants to change how host cities think about the game’s impact on their communities. The 2024 Summer Olympic bids would be evaluated by the IOC and the UN. In this new partnership, the UN would evaluate how proposals would improve the host city’s well-being while the IOC would continue to evaluate the logistical and financial feasibility of the proposals. Hence both business and public health experts would evaluate the merits of each proposal. The winning bid would indicate how hosting the Olympics would have a meaningful, positive, and measurable impact on its city especially in the area of its long-term public health.
This case was used for the 2014 Intramural Global Health Case Competition at Emory University. Student teams made up of multi-disciplinary members present solutions to complex scenarios. In these situations, as is often true in real life, there is no one perfect solution but rather one that involves compromising and prioritizing. Cases from past competitions are available through the Emory Global Health Institute.
Source:
Sizemore E, Rao S. The Public Health Olympics. Global Health Institute, Emory University 2014. https://www.globalhealth.emory.edu/students/case-competitions/archives.html.