Archive

Since the flood of child migrants from Central America burst upon the southern United States in the summer of 2014—a vast rise in arrivals dubbed “the Surge”—Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) had been facing overwhelming demand for its legal services. Wendy…

Many millions of people around the world experience the pervasive, and often painful, societal messages of colorism, where lighter skin tones are asserted to be more attractive and to reflect greater affluence, power, education, and social status. Even…

Physician Moka Lantum was ready to try his hand as a social entrepreneur, aiming to improve healthcare for an underserved population in rural Kenya, where access to clinics was difficult, curable diseases flourished, maternal and child mortality rates…

While violence against children in Turkey was widespread, people across the country were shocked by the news of seven atrocious child molestation cases,one after another over the course of a week in April 2010. Ayşen Özyeğin, Founder and President of the…

Mexico City, one of the largest urban centers in the world with 22 million inhabitants, has long wrestled with severe air pollution problems.  In June 2014, Tanya Müller Garcia, Secretary of Environment (SEDEMA) of the government of Mexico City announced…

As Angela Laramie compiled her thirteenth annual report on sharps injuries (SIs) among hospital workers for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Occupational Health Surveillance Program, she noted that the prevalence of injuries had remained…

When Dr. Marwan started as director of Ramses Hospital in Cairo in 2008, charged by the Minister of Health with improving performance, he found the hospital had been neglected for decades. A Ministry of Health quality audit had recently given the…

In mid-September 2014, the Executive Director of the Health Policy Commission (HPC), an independent state agency in Massachusetts, assessed the proposals submitted by 27 hospitals for projects to be funded from $60m available under Phase 2 of the…

In February 2015, technical staff reviewed the results from a jointly conducted study on malaria control. This study had major implications for malaria in Zambia—and elsewhere. The preliminary analysis strongly suggested that the study’s Mass Drug…

This case considers the challenges, benefits, and costs of hospital participation in a widely recognized surgical quality improvement benchmarking program. The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) issues…