A team from the University of Minnesota received the 2016 International Emory Global Health Case Competition’s Participant’s Choice Award for a plan it proposed to tackle obstetric fistula in India during the event held April 8-9, 2016. The interdisciplinary team, which also placed fourth overall, included School of Public Health students Hiwote Bekele, J’Mag Karbeah, and Patrick Williams.

The team advanced to Emory by winning the University of Minnesota Global Health Case Competition held this past January.

Obstetric fistula is a medical condition where prolonged, obstructed labor creates a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder. The condition leaves women incontinent. For the competition, teams were challenged with developing a $30 million program focused on preventing and managing the condition in Indian women.

“Receiving the Participant’s Choice Award means that the other teams really respected the proposal and presentation that we put together,” says Williams. “The other teams came from the best universities across the world, so it was great to have our hard work and hours of practice recognized by our peers, those same peers we will be working with in the future to address public health issues across the world.”