Application: Short Research Paper on Program Development

This week you complete the first part of a three-part, integrated assignment in which you will develop a program (Week 7), propose a budget (Week 8), and describe an evaluation plan for it (Week 9).

In this Application, you will develop ideas for a public health program intervention. Select a health problem important to your community. You should find a corresponding Healthy People 2020 objective(s). It is important to keep your selected health problem and corresponding Healthy People 2020 objective(s) as focused as possible. Selecting multiple components of a health issue with multiple objectives will prevent you from doing a satisfactory job on the assignment. Focus as well on a geographically defined community. It can be your own community or a smaller geographic area. It is necessary for you to work on a county basis because that is usually the unit for data collection.

Your five-page paper should address the following:

1. Select a problem (at least one Heathy People 2020 objective)
2. Assess the magnitude of the problem—include data on incidence or prevalence of the problem (one page)
3. List the stakeholders or partners that you will involve in developing a program for this problem (half- page)
4. Review the evidence for a program intervention—this ideally will be quality evidence-based public health from the Community Guide for Preventive Services or peer-reviewed literature. Find 3 – 5 sources of evidence, preferably peer-reviewed. (one page)
5. Describe the applicability of the evidence you have located to the community you have selected. (one page)
6. Develop a hypothetical program based on the above steps to address your chosen problem this should include 3 – 5 specific and measurable program objectives. (one and a half pages)
7. In addition to the body of this paper (five pages) include an APA bibiography of your references. Refer to the APA Publication Manual to ensure your text citations and reference list are correct.

For your literature search, find 3 – 5 peer-reviewed sources about similar program interventions. Your specific initiative, however, might not yet have evidence. If you cannot find evidence that is on similar interventions, then find it on interventions that are as close as possible. Be sure to support your work with specific citations from your research as well as this week’s Learning Resources, as appropriate.