This summer, Duke’s Student Collaborative on Health Policy launched its first-ever student writing contest, encouraging Duke undergraduates to write essays on issues related to health policy. Faculty and staff from DGHI and the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy judged entries in two categories – policy analysis and healthcare opinion.

We had plenty of compelling alanysis and storytelling to consider, but these two essays rose to the top:

• “Mobile Health Clinics to Mitigate COVID-19 Systemic Barriers,” by Nikhil Chaudhry, Class of 2024 (Best Policy Analysis)
• “Mutual Unintelligibility: A Personal Letter on Medical Interpretation and Healthcare Equity,” by Elaijah Lapay, Class of 2024 (Best Healthcare Opinion)

SCOHP, a student organization housed in the Margolis Center, is dedicated to increasing awareness and opportunity in health policy through campus engagement, career and professional development, health policy education, and service and advocacy. 
Read the winning entires below.