Assessment 3 Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy
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 (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).
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.
Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide
| CRITERIA | NON-PERFORMANCE | BASIC | PROFICIENT | DISTINGUISHED |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. | Does not explain the current state of the quality of care and outcomes. | Explains the current state of the quality of care and outcomes, but the link to the specific issue in a target population is unclear. | Evaluates the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. | Evaluates the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Identifies knowledge gaps, unknowns, missing information, unanswered questions, or areas of uncertainty (where further information could improve the evaluation). |
| 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. | Does not explain 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. | Explains how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes necessitates health policy development and advocacy, but the link to a specific issue in a target population is unclear. | Analyzes 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. | Analyzes 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. Identifies areas of ambiguity or uncertainty where additional information could help to improve clarity. |
| Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. | Does not justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. | Provides a weak or flawed justification for why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. | Justifies why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. | Justifies why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Impartially considers other perspectives. |
| Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. | Does not explain how a policy could be developed in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. | Explains how a policy could be developed in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population, but does not truly advocate or call other to action with regard to developing policy. | Advocates for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. | Advocates for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. Acknowledges potential challenges to policy development. |
| Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. | Does not explain how interprofessional strategies can support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. | Explains how interprofessional strategies can support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population, but does not fully relate this to the developed policy. | Analyzes the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. | Analyzes the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. Identifies areas of ambiguity or uncertainty where additional information could help to improve clarity. |
| Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. | Does not communicate in a way that is clear or persuasive. | Communicates in a professional manner, but the approach is somewhat unclear or is not very persuasive. There are mechanical writing errors that reduce the effectiveness of communication. | Communicates in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. | Communicates in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Identifies specific strategies or approaches used to ensure clear communication. |
| Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references. | Does not integrate relevant sources to support assertions; does not correctly format citations and references. | Sources lack relevance or are poorly integrated, or citations or references are incorrectly formatted. | Integrates relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references. | Integrates relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references. Citations are free from all errors. |
Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy
REF: Population Health Policy Advocacy
Dear Sir/Madam,
I hope this finds you well.
The main purpose of writing this letter is to offer relevant information about the health concern that the policy is supposed to address in the society. Obesity has in the past few years become a great health concern among various stakeholders that needs to be addressed so that the healthcare outcomes of the society are met.
Currently, obesity is one of the major causes of death among the American population. The healthcare costs have also been skyrocketing due to the threat that is posed by obesity. The ailment is also closely related to many health issues such as strokes, heart diseases, diabetes, cancers, arthritis, gout, high blood pressure, and breathing problems (Masters, et al. 2013).