Knowledge Management for Immunization Policy

The buzz words, knowledge management are used to describe a range of strategies and practices that an organization can use to identify, present, distribute, and enable the adoption of specific insights and experiences gained through formal or informal networks formed among employees and other stakeholders. It seems like this term has become everyday language to corporations- each one boasting of how their networks have proved to improve competitive advantage, performance, innovation and integration. Although knowledge management strategies are not as clearly defined in public health and development efforts, it has infact become an integral part of advocacy efforts for vaccine/immunization policy.


Many vaccines are implemented very slowly, especially in developing countries. Every year, close to 11 million children die from vaccine-preventable diseases. An article in the McKinsey Quarterly highlighted the importance of building stakeholder network maps to determine the informal channels through which knowledge can flow, specifically with regards to decision-making around vaccine adoption. In maps such as this one, the nodes itself represent various influencers, the colors of the nodes indicate organizational affiliation, and the size of the nodes show the level of input sought from the person/organization it represents. Understanding who influences the process of vaccine adoption in developing countries allows international funding and advocacy agencies such as GAVI & AVI-TAC to direct their resources and efforts towards the optimal channels in order to accelerate the adoption of life-saving vaccines into national immunization schedules.

( Figure from 'A better way to speed the adoption of new vaccines: Mapping the way decision makers interact could hasten the introduction of vaccines.' McKinsey & Company. The McKinsey Quarterly. August 2008.)

Sex Education goes for IT

IT has been integrated into public health efforts more extensively than you might imagine- especially in the field of sexual health education. I was first drawn to the sheer vastness of efforts in this area when I, along with colleagues from The Women's Collective, presented SisterAct: Utilizing Technology to Address Challenges to Intergenerational Communication about Sexual Health, at the 2009 Sex::Tech Conference in San Fransisco. We introduced, with some enthusiasm, the various innovations we had incorporated into our curriculum to ease the process of intergenerational communication about sexual health issues, usually a tabooed subject among African American women and girls- social networking sites, blogs, educational movie clips, and personal video journals as a means for our clients to open up necessary communication channels, otherwise hindered by stigma and fear.

But it doesn't stop where we started-there are a number of examples of how IT has become the foundation for sexual health education. The Text4Baby Campaign allows low-income, expectant mothers in the US to receive free text messages timed with their due dates, about nutrition, immunization, birth defect prevention and a range of other educational topics. Businesses such as L'oreal have incorporated media efforts such as the I Am Worth It Campaign their corporate social responsibility portfolios, encouraging young women to be proud of their womanhood, and maintain high-self esteem in their sexual relationships. In South Africa and Kenya, an SMS test messaging program for HIV positive individuals has allowed people to overcome the problems of an overburdened health system and limited access to doctors- One World in Kenya and Cell Life in South Africa, provide both mass-messaging preventative education services, and allow HIV positive users to text their questions and concerns to doctors available to assist immediately.


So that's right. I was as shocked as you might be at the idea of conferences recurring annually, dedicated solely to the integration of information technology and sexual health education. But given these impressive innovations it is clear that there is a promising future in the overlay of IT and health education.

Making Introductions

Public health with its traditional focus on altruism and aid, and business, in the diametric opposite corner, known to drive corporate hunger with its clamor for profits and growth- it's easy to see why one might think these fields are somewhat incompatible. But as a fresh graduate from an MPH/MBA dual degree program at Johns Hopkins University, I am keeping this blog in the hope of convincing you otherwise.

I grew up in Bangalore, India, today known to be the Silicon Valley of the East. But after some years of struggling to compete amidst the crowds of hard-working, success-driven citizens India boasts of, I found my way to the West, attempting to live the American Dream- I was hoping for a good education, a comfortable job and a Green Card somewhere in the mix. However, four years of college at Grinnell- a liberal haven if there ever was one- interrupted by a stint of public health work in Botswana, worked together to quickly change that goal for me. Today, my interests lie in contributing towards the effort to allow other parts of the world to have the chance to live their own versions of the American Dream, not needing to go as far as I went, looking for it- an ambitious goal I realize.

There is a glimmer of hope though. I believe that in order for us to successfully reach many of the health-related targets of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, public health efforts cannot continue in isolation from the macro-economy they rest within. In the intersection of public health and information technology, corporate social responsibility and private sector support, as well as the education of the masses to grasp the benefits of social enterprise, lie the answers to many of the 21st centuries health and development concerns. Like the internet accelerated globalization, I'm certain leveraging functional business models/tools/strategies to harness their benefits into health and development efforts can without a doubt accelerate the rate at which the world will rise out of poverty and sickness. This blog is my attempt to muse on this idea, and others, and perhaps even captivate you enough to be an advocate for thoughtfully integrating such efforts into your own work.