Assignment
Imagine that you are a working public health professional within a state health department. Your supervisor wants you to research the pathophysiology of diseases either naturally occurring (or facilitated by) human behaviors. In this work Assignment, you may choose a topic dealing with a particular emerging infectious disease, a disease caused by a toxicological agent, or a disease caused by health behavior. Your supervisor requires that your report must focus on the pathophysiological, biological nature of the disease. Furthermore, your supervisor asks that you discuss the basis of public health laws, policies, or regulations related to this disease.
Your supervisor asks that you present your findings in a professional report, with the following sections: abstract, introduction, literature review, conclusions, and recommendations. A superior report contains scholarly depth, current APA format, proofreading for spelling and grammatical errors, logical flow of ideas and a logical conclusion, overall scholarly style and tone, and academic references throughout.
The report should include at least four primary sources (current, peer-reviewed journal articles found through the Library) and at least eight total scholarly sources.
In addition, discuss how your understanding of the disease serves as a basis for public health laws, policies, or regulations related to this disease.
The body of the paper should be 8-10 pages, double spaced, not counting the title page, table of contents (optional), abstract, and reference list. All papers must include the following sections, at minimum: Introduction (subsections to include statement of the problem, significance of the problem, and background), Literature Review (with topic-appropriate subsections), and Conclusions and Recommendations.
1) Title page
2) Table of Contents (optional)
3) Abstract: Abstracts must be concise and specific. The basic idea of an abstract is to provide what was done in the paper, including the key four or five findings, and the conclusion. Background information is not included in an abstract, nor are generalities.
4) Introduction: This must include the statement of the problem and the significance of the problem (validate with text citations and statistics). This section also includes any background and general information that is useful to understand the literature review that follows. For some topics, this may include historical context.
5) Literature Review: This is the heart of the paper. This section includes the analysis of the current (within 5 years) primary literature and should consist of presentation of hypotheses, study methods, results, and conclusions in the student's own words. Compare and contrast studies. Analyze them for flaws and value. Consider studies with conflicting results and similar results and postulate reasons for this as well as conclusions to be drawn. Organization of the literature review section may vary according to the topic, but this section should demonstrate a cohesive connection between all of the primary articles being discussed. Page numbers are required. The use of transitional statements is strongly encouraged.
6) Conclusions and Recommendations: This section is designed to pull together all of the information, including reiterating the significance of the problem and presenting the overarching conclusions of the current research that was analyzed in the literature review. The paper must include a discussion of gaps and recommendations for further policies, legislation, interventions, and/or research.
7) Reference List: All references that were cited in the text must appear here in APA format, single spaced with hanging indent. Full credit will not be given should the reference list lack the minimum number of four primary research articles. Keep in mind that most final papers will need many more than two to make the paper complete.