Question

what is entrepreneurship in public health? and explain the value and relationship of entrepreneurship in public health.

Answer 1

Public health entrepreneurship:

Public health is a field that is known for creating positive change in the health of the population.

Public health entrepreneurship is the opportunistic creation & implementation of catalytic innovations to offer sustained improvement in the health of the population in the face of need without being limited by resources.

One of the biggest burdens in the case of healthcare solution is financial burden. This creates long barrier between the solution & its implementation. Hence all these problems would require innovative problem solving which can be achieved by means of entrepreneurship as being innovative & generating profitability.

One of the best examples of social entrepreneurship model is health insurance which can be considered as a milestone in connecting health with entrepreneurship.

There are some examples of PHE’s which is being implemented in the field level by public health graduates of various universities like Columbia university mailman school of public health, Harvard TH Chan school of public health, university of Michigan etc. some of the examples include:

• Establishing a link between grocery retailers & a ride share program to enable transportation limited individuals to shop for healthy foods in well stocked grocery stores.
• Ithermometer: a sensor that is connected to the iphone app for observing body temperature & ifertracker a small fertility tracker developed by MPH graduate of Harvard TH school of public health.
• Developing 911 system/ emergency medical system in countries which don’t have it-

Other entrepreneurship projects relating to public health would include:

• Design & development of healthy homes.
• Healthy food stores.
• Health & recreational institutions.
• Information & communication.
• Behavior change institutes.
• Smoking / tobacco cessation reality programs etc.

      PHE seems to be more attractive because an individual can grow both financially & socially. Public health entrepreneurs also have the opportunity to build an innovative enterprise that balances financial sustainability creating public health impact.

The public health entrepreneur must develop some crucial skills like multiframe perspective, proactiveness, legal & regulatory structures, marketing & communications, finance, market research & evaluation etc.

Public Health entrepreneurship does not only mean generating profit for own good and wealth. Generating profit is also needed to scale up the enterprise in a bigger level so that bigger social impacts can be created. So, if we are to create higher value in the society, why not use business model for more innovation, more flexibility, more self-sustainability, more opportunity and more freedom in a long run.