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Medium Operations Strategy Resource Allocation

UN Polio

#Government/Public Sector #Healthcare #International Development #Non-profit
ProHub Comment

This is an interviewer-led case requiring structured thinking on unfamiliar territory (vaccination campaigns). It progresses logically from location selection through epidemiological concepts (herd immunity) to operational considerations (distribution methods and cost analysis), teaching candidates to break down complex problems systematically even without domain expertise.

Estimated Time 15 minutes
Difficulty Medium
Source Cornell
50 / 100
Your client is the United Nations, who have hired you to help them with their fight to eradicate polio. They’re struggling with two related problems: 1) out of the countries that have requested their help to fight polio, which should they choose to go into first and 2) once they have chosen a particular location to go into, what factors need to be considered to ensure success. To start, what are some of the characteristics you would look for to identify the best location for the UN to start with?

Clarifying Information

No separate ‘Clarifying Information’ section provided in the case. Candidates receive exhibits progressively during the interview: Exhibit 1 shows a Global Polio Study chart with countries plotted by prevalence and death rate; Exhibit 2 provides an epidemiological S-curve showing vaccination effectiveness and herd immunity threshold.