Iterative Assignment (90%)  

Overview

The majority of your total course grade is based on your development of a comprehensive intervention and monitoring framework addressing a single socio-behavioural risk factor or risk condition for one or more chronic diseases. Examples of risk factors or risk conditions are: smoking tobacco products, poverty, lack of social cohesion, alcohol abuse, unsafe sexual practices, unhealthy eating, physical inactivity, the built environment, etc. 

Your framework

  • must involve a mix of at least three complementary policy, communication, service, or program development activities;
  • may include clinical practices (e.g., encouraging primary care providers to follow clinical guidelines to counsel patients about a risk factor or condition), but should not focus exclusively on clinical treatment strategies;
  • must be population-oriented; that is, it must be designed to positively shift the population distribution or prevalence of the risk factor or condition for a specific neighbourhood, community region (e.g., city), province/territory, country, or set of countries.

The interventions within the framework may be directed at any combination of individuals, groups, organizations, communities and/or entire populations. 

Your framework should be original. You should not simply replicate an existing framework. However, you may substantially adapt or build upon previous frameworks. If you choose to build upon or modify an existing framework, you must indicate how your framework has been adapted, and address why your modifications are expected to be an improvement.

You will build and submit your framework through a series of stages:

  1. Select a topic
  2. Submit a first draft of your introduction (15% of final grade)
  3. Submit a first draft of your intervention options (20% of final grade)
  4. Submit a first draft of your implementation and monitoring plans (20% of final grade)
  5. Submit a final comprehensive framework, including an executive summary (35% of final grade)

After each of the first four stages, you will receive feedback from the instructor and/or teaching assistant. You are expected to use this feedback to improve your final comprehensive framework. 

You are encouraged to share your drafts with your peers to actively solicit feedback with respect to issues you may be struggling with and ideas on how the proposal could be improved. Use the Iterative Assignment discussion topic to solicit open feedback from other members of the class.  Discussions can be accessed by clicking Connect and then Discussions on the course navigation bar on the Course Home page. You may also find a peer or “buddy” among your classmates to exchange drafts for review. 

Why is this an Iterative Assignment?

You may wonder why you’re being asked to submit the same work more than once (i.e., an initial draft of a section, followed later by a full paper that includes the section)? In the “real world,” public health professionals who are asked to develop policy and program briefs seldom have to undertake the task completely on their own. Rather, it is common practice to consult with colleagues, experts and stakeholders during the development of important and comprehensive briefs. Professionals then use the feedback they receive to revise, clarify, and enhance their ideas. This assignment is intended to emulate this process. It is hoped that your ideas and writing will evolve and improve with feedback. Use the assignment as a learning vehicle to improve your writing, conceptual development, and critical thinking skills.

How To Submit Your Assignment

Please note that the following instructions pertain to this specific assignment. Instructions for other assignments may differ.

Each stage of your assignment must be submitted online to the appropriate Iterative Assignment Dropbox by the deadline specified in the Course Schedule. Dropboxes can be accessed by clicking Submit and then Dropbox on the course navigation bar on the Course Home page.

Your assignment must be submitted in one of the following file types:

  • Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) - Preferred
  • Portable Document Format (PDF) 

Please refer to the Submitting to a LEARN Dropbox page for general guidelines, how to submit to a dropbox, and how to create a PDF.

Topic Selection

Each student will select and submit a potential topic area for their framework.

In a maximum of one-half a page (single-spaced), indicate

  • what risk factor or condition you intend to address, and
  • the scope of your intervention framework (e.g., is it aimed at a regional level, a provincial or state level, a national level or international level?).

The instructor and/or teaching assistant will provide feedback on or before the date specified in the  Course Schedule. Feedback will be in one of three formats:

  1. permission to proceed;
  2. permission to proceed, subject to addressing identified concerns (students do NOT need to re-submit to the dropbox); or
  3. a request to substantially change or alter your topic. Students in the last category must re-submit their topic to the dropbox for approval before proceeding with the next stage of the assignment.

Iterative Assignment Structure

The main body of your final document should include the following components:

 Section Element
Executive Summary
  • An executive summary (maximum of one page; only required in final document)
Introduction
  • A description of the nature and scope of the problem, as well as the rationale for a comprehensive population-level intervention to address the problem
  • An overall goal and related set of objectives for the proposed strategy
  • A clear statement about who the intervention is intended to help and the scope of the initiative (e.g., is it a local community framework, a provincial framework, a federal framework, a national framework?)
 Intervention Options
  •  A brief description of various optional interventions that might be employed to address the problem
  • A brief analysis of the expected benefits and challenges associated with each optional intervention or combination of interventions (e.g., a brief review of the literature or other forms of evidence on how effective the action is likely to be in your population of interest)
  • A clear recommendation about which combination of interventions (a minimum of three) is preferable for reaching the stated objectives, and a description of why this is the preferred option
 Implementation Plan
  • A description of who will be responsible for implementing the plan (and what role each partner will play) and who is accountable for its success
  • A description of how the recommended interventions should be monitored 

Detailed descriptions of your rationale, objectives, interventions, recommendations, implementations, and monitoring procedures should be included in the body of the document. 

You may, at your discretion, include appendices that provide more detailed information about some aspect of your assignment. Appendices should be reserved for explanatory material that provides detail about a specific element of your assignment, but that is not central to understanding or justifying your planned approach.

Formatting Instructions

The main body of your assignment should be a maximum of ten single-spaced pages, excluding the title page, executive summary, tables, figures, appendices, and references. However, the total maximum number of pages for all elements of your proposal, including the title page, executive summary, main body, tables, figures, appendices, and references must not exceed 25 pages.

Indicate your name and the title of the framework at the top of each page and include page numbers at the bottom of each page.

Please observe the page limits noted above. Include a minimum margin of 2.5 cm and do not use condensed type or spacing. Print, photographs, and other material must be of high quality and easy to read. 

Appropriately reference the sources you use to inform your assignments. Citations should employ any standard format of your choice such as the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Bio-medical Journals, the Chicago Manual of Style, or the Fifth edition of the American Psychological Association. Select one format and follow it consistently throughout your document.

Evaluation Criteria

Your writing should be clear, concise, and polished. Your grade will be largely determined by your ability to clearly articulate yourself.

Your proposal or intervention framework will be reviewed with respect to the following:

  • Clarity
    Have the ideas been expressed in a coherent, precise, and concise manner? Have ideas been appropriately referenced? Do tables, figures, and appendices add value or are they redundant?
  • Persuasiveness
    Do you make a compelling case for why the framework should be adopted?
  • Format
    Does the document conform to the required standards and format?
  • Rationale
    Is your proposal based on a sound rationale that has been clearly articulated? Is your idea based on sound theory and/or a solid base of scientific and epidemiological evidence?
  • Purpose
    Have you clearly identified your aims and objectives, etc.?
  • Feasibility
    Are your interventions and monitoring plan feasible and practical?
  • Partnerships
    Have you involved important partners/stakeholders and specified what their roles will be? Have you provided a rationale or justification for involving each of the prospective partners?
  • Intervention description
    Have you adequately described your interventions? Have you described their theoretical and/or empirical foundation? Have you described the conditions under which the interventions will be delivered (e.g., who will deliver them, where they will be delivered, when they will be delivered, the delivery sequence)?
  • Intervention mix
    Is the selection, mix, and dose of interventions appropriate for your stated aims and objectives? Have you adequately justified the selection, mix and dose of interventions being recommended?
  • Monitoring plan (intervention framework)
    Have you clearly described your expected outcomes? Are outcomes and measures valid and reliable? Have you described how and when data will be collected, who will collect it, and how and who will disseminate results?  Have you described who will be accountable for the results?
  • Referencing
    Have you appropriately acknowledged the sources that you drew upon to inform your framework?

Tips

Your paper should be written for a policy maker such as a Minister of Health, A Deputy Minister, the head of a non-profit agency, or even your local/regional Board of Health. Be sure to cover the following:

  1. What is the population health issue/problem?
  2. How significant is the problem?
  3. Who is affected?
  4. What are the options for dealing with the problem?
  5. What option do you recommend?
  6. What will it cost?
  7. How do we know it will work?
  8. How will we know whether we’ve been successful in adequately addressing the problem in an efficient way?

Important statements should be appropriately attributed and referenced, but don’t get carried away. When describing a problem and how significant it might be, speak in terms that the intended reader will understand.  

Example

If your intended audience is a school board, don’t describe the problem only in health terms. A school board has a mandate to educate, and they are most likely to act when they believe your issue will either inhibit or facilitate their ability to meet their primary mission. Therefore, if you want to increase levels of physical activity among school children, don’t just describe how rapid increases in childhood obesity are putting the future health of thousands of Canadians at risk. Rather, your paper will be more compelling (and more likely to result in the desired response) if you make your argument relevant to your audience and point out that quality daily physical education has been shown to improve performance in basic academic skills such as mathematics and reading, and that daily physical education reduces behaviour problems that make classroom learning and teaching a challenge. And, by the way, it also reduces the risk of obesity and future health consequences.

Include an opening paragraph that immediately engages the reader (the decision maker). Don’t make your reader wade through several pages before finding the substance of your paper. Begin with a very succinct overview of the problem and reassure the reader that there are viable solutions. 

Example

If writing for the Federal Minister of Health, you might begin by saying:

Each year more than 400 thousand Canadian children are hospitalized for problem X. 56% of X is due to Y. Recent studies have shown that prevalence of Y can be reduced among this population by introducing a combination of policies and programs. This paper will describe four potential solutions and recommend the broad adoption of two interventions that have the potential to reduce 100 000 cases and 75 000 childhood hospitalization each year. 

These four sentences immediately and succinctly introduce the problem, describe its scope, and outline the potential impact of a recommended solution. 

At the end of the day, decision makers don’t want you to describe more problems. Rather, they want to be informed of potential problems AND how to deal with them (in a way that will make them look good). The tip here is to write a solution-oriented paper, not an academic problem-focused paper.