The Global Trachoma Mapping Project

This case describes and invites readers to consider lessons learned from the Global Trachoma Mapping Project (GTMP), the largest standardized global mapping project ever to take place for any disease. A three-year project with more than 60 partners working together across six continents, GTMP aimed to eliminate the harmful effects of this bacterial eye infection worldwide by 2020. The case provides background on trachoma, the history of global efforts to control it, and the events, strategies, technology, and stakeholders behind the mapping project. Readers are asked to think with project leaders in 2015 about how to maximize returns to achieve global trachoma elimination within five years. The case offers an opportunity to consider health systems management and the role of global collaborations on a large scale. It invites discussion about how lessons learned from efforts to map this neglected tropical disease might inform other disease control programs.

Learning Objectives: A productive class discussion will allow students to appreciate what contributes to the development of a productive coalition; what it takes to collect quality data at scale; the challenges and benefits of identifying your target population for public health programming; and the tradeoffs between a targeted campaign addressing one disease and bundling efforts for multiple diseases.

The Global Health Delivery (GHD) Project, an interdisciplinary collaboration between Harvard Business School, Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, investigates the management decisions behind disease treatment and prevention globally. The Global Health Delivery (GHD) Case Collection is a set of teaching case studies that are available for all at no cost online through Harvard Business Publishing, GHDonline, and The Case Centre.