Assignment: Population Health Policy Advocacy Assessment 3

Assignment: Population Health Policy Advocacy Assessment 3

Question Description

Overview
Write a letter to the editor of an academic or professional journal. The length and format of the letter is dictated by your choice of journal.

Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.

Advocating for new policies is an important aspect of the master’s-prepared nurse. For new policies to be compelling they need to be supported by evidence. Supporting data can be used to illustrate why new policies and interventions are needed to help address a specific health issue. Compelling data can help sway the stakeholders and gain support for your policy.

Assessment Instructions
SCENARIO
Throughout this course, you have focused on a specific health issue occurring within a specific population. You researched position papers regarding this health concern, and you developed a health policy proposal to positively impact the health of the affected individuals. It is now time to reach a greater audience regarding your policy proposal.

INSTRUCTIONS
Develop a letter to the editor of a peer-reviewed academic or professional nursing journal based on the policy proposal that you created for Assessment 2. Choose from one of the journals on the Ultimate List of Nursing Journals (https://www.nursingschool.org/ultimate-list-of-nursing-journals/) (in the Resources) and go to that journal’s Web site to find out the requirements for submitting a letter to the editor, such as format requirements, topics, and word counts. Make sure you select a nursing journal that covers the topic about which you are going to write. If you want to use another journal that is not on this list, please make sure the journal does address health care, because this is the purpose of the assessment.

The goal of your letter is to be informative about the policy that you developed for Assessment 2, while also being persuasive about the need for and benefit of similar policies in other health care settings. The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your submission addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy document to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.

Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
Look back to the data or scenario you used in Assessment 1 to address this criterion.
Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.
Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.
Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style (or the journal’s preferred style).
Example Assessment: You may use the assessment example, linked in the Assessment Example section of the Resources, to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
The submission requirements for your editorial will depend on the journal you choose. To find out the requirements, go to the journal’s Web site. There should be a section regarding submissions that will address how to format letters to the editor, and whether there is a word count limit (there usually is a limit).

If the journal does not have submission guidelines for the number of resources required, use 3–5 sources.
To be sure that your instructor knows the submission and formatting requirements for your letter, include the journal’s guidelines on a separate page at the end of the document you submit for this assessment.
RESOURCES
The resources provided here are optional. You may use other resources of your choice to prepare for this assessment; however, you will need to ensure that they are appropriate, credible, and valid. The MSN-FP6026 – Biopsychosocial Concepts for Advanced Nursing Practice II Library Guide can help direct your research, and the Supplemental Resources and Research Resources, both linked from the left navigation menu in your courseroom, provide additional resources to help support you.

Advocacy
Allen, D. D., Lauffenburger, J., Law, A. V., Vanderveen, R. P., & Lang, W. G. (2012). Report of the 2011–2012 standing committee on advocacy: The relevance of excellent research: Strategies for impacting public policy. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 76(6), 13–25.
Jansson, B. S., Nyamathi, A., Heidemann, G., Bird, M., Rogers Ward, C., Brown-Saltzman, K., . . . Kaplan, C. (2016). Predicting levels of policy advocacy engagement among acute-care health professionals. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 17(1), 43–55.
Kung, Y. M., & Rudner Lugo, N. (2015). Political advocacy and practice barriers: A survey of Florida APRNs. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 27(3), 145–151.
Standing up for somebody: What is advocacy and why do we do it? (2014). The Queensland Nurse, 33(3), 28–29.
Biopsychosocial (Population and Public Health)
Richmond, S. A., D’Cruz, J., Lokku, A., MacPherson, A., Howard, A., & MacArthur, C. (2016). Trends in unintentional injury mortality in Canadian children 1950–2009 and association with selected population-level interventions. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 107(4/5), e431–e437.
Evidence-Based Practice
Doria, J. B. (2014). A culturally congruent education group: An evidence-based approach to improve prenatal care utilization. Journal of Nursing Practice Applications & Reviews of Research, 4(2), 94–101.
Letters to the Editor
Donzelli, A. (2015). E-cigarettes may impair ability to quit, but other explanations are possible. American Journal of Public Health, 105(11), 1.
Lutwak, N., Dill, C., Blosnich, J. R., Bossarte, R. M., & Silenzio, V. M. B. (2012). Improved health care for sexual minority and transgender veterans. American Journal of Public Health, 102(8), E10–E11.
NursingSchool.org. (2017). Ultimate list of nursing journals. Retrieved from http://nursingschool.org/ultimate-list-of-nursing-…
Pharmacology
Åkesson, A., Larsson, S. C., Discacciati, A., & Wolk, A. (2014). Low-risk diet and lifestyle habits in the primary prevention of myocardial infarction in men. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 64(13), 1299–1306.
Policy
Olson, K. (2016). Influence through policy: Four steps YOU can take. Reflections on Nursing Leadership, 42(2), 1–3.
Prevention
Berger-Jenkins, E., Rausch, J., Okah, E., Tsao, D., Nieto, A., Lyda, E., . . . McCord, M. (2014). Evaluation of a coordinated school-based obesity prevention program in a Hispanic community: Choosing Healthy and Active Lifestyles for Kids/Healthy Schools Healthy Families. American Journal of Health Education, 45(5), 261–270.
Institute for Work & Health. (n.d.). What researchers mean by… primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. Retrieved from http://www.iwh.on.ca/wrmb/primary-secondary-and-te…

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You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.