Students at The George Washington University (GW) competed in the 10th annual DC Public Health Case Challenge and won the 2023 Grand prize. This event is co-sponsored by the National Academy of Medicine’s Kellogg Health of the Public Fund and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Population Health Improvement, with support from the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education.
This year’s topic was “A Public Health Approach to Improve the Health of Women Experiencing Homelessness in DC.” The seven competing teams from DC-area universities were given two weeks to develop a solution to this challenging problem with a hypothetical $1 million budget to be used during a two-year span. Students were asked to develop a broad-based, population-level preventive approach to respond to the identified public health problem.
The GW team presented their winning solution titled “& Every Woman,” which is a proposed program that focuses on three main priorities to ameliorate the mental health outcomes of unhoused LGBTQ young women in DC. Key components of the program included improving the resource knowledge and use of local services targeted for this population (Community Connections), improving the physical and psychological safety of local shelters for LGBTQ women (Pink Refuge), and advocating for policies which protect and support unhoused LGBTQ young women on their path toward stable housing. The students on the GW team conducted stakeholder interviews and site visits in women’s shelters to base their project in the community.
The interdisciplinary team included students representing the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health, GW School of Nursing, and the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences: Shawn Bayrd (MPH ‘24), Fatima Elgaguri (PA ‘24), Anna Hochberg (MPH ‘23), Nick Jennings (MD), Wendy Post (PhD), and Soukeyna Sylla (DrPH ‘24). Faculty advisors included Gene Migliaccio, DrPH, and Jen Skillicorn, DrPH, from the Milken Institute School of Public Health, and Karla Bartholomew, PhD, JD, from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences.