General requirements
All assignments should be done in 12-point font, double spaced. Use an accepted referencing format (e.g., APA or MLA style). All material must be appropriately referenced or it will be considered plagiarism. Please minimize grammatical and spelling errors. Points will be deducted for writings that are difficult to read or have frequent errors.
Assignment 4
Suppose you are a local or state representative involved in policy development. You are asked to address a public health problem following the steps below:
Identify a problem. Select a current public health problem and describe its significance in terms of its epidemiology, population health impact, economic impact, and the types of policy issues raised by the nature of the problem.
Identify policy alternatives. Prepare a list of program or policy alternatives that could be implemented by a state or local health department to
alleviate the problem you have identified.
Identify criteria to be used in choosing an appropriate policy action. Discuss how you would weigh the public health impact, impact on health equity, political feasibility, ethical issues, and estimated costs of competing alternatives in forming your policy recommendation.
Use evidence to evaluate each policy alternative. Project the corresponding outcome for each program or policy alternative according to the chosen evaluative criteria.
RECOMMEND: Given the assigned weighting, determine which alternative would be the best program or policy that you would recommend. Use a matrix table to demonstrate your decision process. A demonstrative example of the matrix table is provided below.
An example of the matrix table.
Cost
(30%)
Political feasibility
(30%)
Efficacy
(30%)
Health equity
(10%)
Option 1: x
$100,000
High
10% reduction in disease incidence
Improved
Option 2: y
$30,000
Low
%5 reduction in disease incidence
Improved
Option 3: z
$75,000
Medium
8% reduction in disease incidence
No change
PREVIOUSNEXT
