Assignment #1 (50% of final grade)
1. Objectives:
a. To develop an understanding of the foundations underlying responses to health-related issues
b. To develop an understanding of the strategies, activities, and processes employed in interventions that respond to health-related issues
2. Selecting a topic/issue:
a. Identify a health-related issue in which you are interested; students are free to select any issue they choose (CLICK HERE for previous students’ selected issues and community responses; CLICK HERE for a range of possible issues).
b. Identify an intervention/response to the selected health-related issue
i. This intervention can be one that is undertaken by a practitioner, a community, an organization/agency, an institution, a government; the intervention can take any form including but not limited to a program, policy, community action, advocacy/interest group
ii. This intervention can be one with which the student has experience OR one about which the student can acquire adequate information
3. Assignment tasks/analyses:
a. Part 1: Analyze the socio-ecological context in which the health-related issue, and the intervention/response to this issue, operate including:
i. The socio-ecological factors related to the nature and origins of health-related issue, that is, the underlying individual and social-environmental determinants identified/assumed by the intervention in addressing your chosen issue/problem
ii. The socio-ecological factors upon which the intervention/response focuses with respect to the health-related issue
iii. Students’ reports must include a visual representation of the results of their socio-ecological analyses (e.g., by use of “Problem/Solution Trees”, “Mind-mapping/concept-mapping”, “Logic Models”—CLICK HERE for “Analytical and Visual Representational Tools” ).
i. The intervention’s underlying goal/objectives
ii. The theories and beliefs underlying the intervention
iii. The evidence underlying the intervention, including: the body of evidence upon which the intervention is based; the nature of the evidence; and the ways in which evidence is used
iv. The intervention’s underlying values and ethical positions
v. The strengths and limitations of the underlying foundations currently employed in responding to the selected health-related issue
c. Part 3: Identify, analyze, and discuss the strategies, activities, and processes employed by the intervention in addressing the health-related issue.
This analysis must consider the following:
i. The general, broad, strategies (i.e., health education, community development, policy/advocacy, etc.)
ii. The more specific activities that form part of overall strategies, or sometimes stand alone
iii. The processes employed—that is, not what was done, but how strategies and activities were developed, implemented and/or supported
iv. The variety of strategies and activities employed, and how these relate to the social determinants of health associated with the various levels associated with taking an socio-ecological approach in addressing your selected issue (i.e., individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, societal, global); this should include consideration of the relationships, synergy, etc. among the activities, strategies, processes, etc. at the different socio-ecological levels
v. The consonance/dissonance between these strategies, activities etc. and the stated/assumed underlying foundations (i.e., re. assumed individual and social-environmental determinants of health, goals/objectives, theories/beliefs, evidence, values)
vi. The strengths and limitations of the intervention’s strategies, activities, and processes currently employed in responding to the selected health-related issue
4. These analyses should be based upon:
a. Documentation about the response (where this is available), and/or communications from key informants (where this is available), and/or inferences drawn about the intervention/response (based upon the student’s knowledge and/or understanding of the intervention)
b. Students should clearly identify the source/bases of their analysis and the conclusions they draw regarding the foundations underlying their selected intervention
5. Submit electronic version of report (50% of final grade)
a. Early submissions and feedback: Reports submitted by Friday, February 17, will be given electronic feedback and preliminary grade; these reports can be re-submitted if desired.
i. These students will receive feedback by Friday, February 24
ii. Final drop date for courses: Monday, February 27
iii. These students will then have approximately two weeks in which to resubmit their reports, if they want to do so (i.e., resubmissions must be received by Tuesday, March 6).
b. Final date for submission of (non-early) Assignment #1 reports: Reports are due no later than Monday, February 27
c. Minimum of 10 pages SINGLE-SPACED (more, if more than one student); 1” margins all round; 12-point typeface (PLEASE!!)
d. Please submit reports as a Word document: Word documents allow me to provide adequate electronic feedback; it is very difficult to give electronic feedback to PDF files. However, feel free to ALSO submit a PDF version if you have figures that are unstable, or that are difficult to import into a Word document.
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