how health issues and policies contribute to health outcomes

PHE 505 Final Project Guidelines and Rubric Overview Understanding how health issues and policies contribute to health outcomes and how research can be translated into practice are important if strategies and interventions that promote public health are to be developed. One of the essential functions of a public health practitioner is the ability to diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community. Understanding how to develop a research question and the methodology necessary to investigate complex public health issues is essential for the public health practitioner.
For this assessment, you will identify a research hypothesis based on an emergent public health issue or trend. You will design a research proposal that investigates this research hypothesis. This proposal is just the first step in beginning a research study. As a practitioner, you would create such proposals for submission for ethical review before the implementation of the full research study. The project is divided into four milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules One, Four, Five, and Seven. The final deliverable will be submitted in Module Nine.
In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes: • Compare and contrast public health study designs for their appropriateness in terms of research strategies and results • Develop reasonable and fully researchable hypotheses and research questions that probe emerging public health issues or trends • Select appropriate quantitative or qualitative methodologies for developing evidence-based strategies that respond to public health issues in an ethical manner • Determine appropriate statistical methods for analyzing existing data in response to public health related research inquiry • Propose appropriate public health study designs in terms of cost, setting, time, and generalizability Prompt Your research proposal should respond to the following prompt: Diagnose and investigate a health problem or health hazard in a community. Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed: I. Background Information: Provide a brief overview of your chosen public health problem or health hazard. Identify the population(s) at risk with respect to the public health issue or trend and substantiate your claims with research. II. Literature Review A. Compare and contrast the study findings. Be sure to only include pertinent conclusions and statistical findings. B. Evaluate the research design strategies used in the articles, as applicable to the research question in the study. Was the research design appropriate for the study conducted? Was the statistical analysis employed the best choice for the research questions posed? C. If secondary data was utilized, was the source biased or objective? Why? If original research was conducted, do you think the researchers were biased or objective? Why? Be sure to support your answer. D. Synthesize the main findings of the research articles. What were the hypotheses of the research studies? Did the research add any new scholarly information to the existing body of knowledge? What patterns and trends exist in the research? What generalizations can you draw from the research? III. Research Question/Hypothesis A. Craft your research question with respect to its relationship to an emergent topic or trend, target population, and location. B. What will your research question add to the body of knowledge? How does your research question align with your literature? For example, is there a gap in the literature that your research question will help to answer? C. Assess the feasibility and validity of your question. For example, is the research question biologically plausible? IV. Methodology Analysis: This area addresses the methodology you will use for this research. This is where you will discuss the type of study or design that informed your methodology. A. Describe the population, sample size, and location. Who makes up the overall population, where are they located, what sample size will you use? B. How is this methodology aligned to your research question and hypothesis? C. What ethical issues are pertinent to your research? D. Discuss the timeline, setting, and potential costs associated with your research. V. Statistical Data Analyses: This area addresses the statistical data analyses you will employ. How are they appropriate for the research question and methodology? A. How did you choose the sample? Provide justification for your selection. For example, is it a random sample or convenience sample? B. What methods(s) will you use to collect the data–surveys, informant interviews, focus groups? How are these selections appropriate to the research question and methodology? C. What version of statistical program will you use to analyze the data (SPSS, SAS, STATA, for example). Why? D. Assess the reliability, validity, and generalizability of your proposal and data. How can you apply this data to your sample and beyond? For example, can the results of your study be used among different populations? VI. Conclusions A. What were the limitations to your research with respect to the needs of the study, use beyond this study, and your resources? B. Why is this research important to public health? What could this study be used for? What would be the public health implications of this study? Ensure this conclusion aligns with your research question/hypothesis.