HPR232 Community Health

Discussion: HPR232 Community Health
Discussion: HPR232 Community Health
Discussion: HPR232 Community Health

Advocacy and Policy

Advocacy and policy are both elements that must be integrated into effective health education. Your post will consist of the following two parts:

Part I:

Examine the differences between advocacy and lobbying.
Explain why health educators focus on advocacy rather than lobbying
Post Part I in the discussion forum’s text box and attach your document from Part II.

Part II:

Select a public health concern from this list which you desire to research and address:Ban texting while driving.
Ban the sale of cigarettes.
Stop synthetic drug creation and abuse (prescription or nonprescription).
Improve public health’s reach regarding mental health options.
Place tighter restrictions on who can purchase a firearm.
Using the following scenario, advocate for one of these issues for a nationwide law. Scenario: You are working for your state’s health department and are advocating for a nationwide law to accomplish the goal you selected from above list. As part of your campaign, you must write a letter to one of your federal legislators. For Part II of this discussion, you will be drafting that letter. You are limited to no more than two pages of single-spaced type (12 point font), so your letter must be succinct and follow the protocols outlined in your reading for this week. Refer to the Sample Letters to Legislators for additional information on how to format, address, and compose a letter of this nature.
Do the following: Research and identify one federal legislator from your state who you feel should have an interest in your chosen issue. Every state has its own federal legislators in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Therefore, the individuals to choose from will be different for each state. Make sure the address line and your salutation properly addresses your selected individual.
Compose your letter and state your case in favor of a nationwide law to address your chosen health issue. Formal letters such as these generally do not include APA-cited references, so you do not have to include in-text citations within your letter. However, you must clearly reference major statistics and other documents within your letter as your chosen legislator will want to know which law or issue you are addressing. For example, “The Institutes of Medicine found that…” or “According to the National Transportation Safety Board…”
Save your letter as a PDF (.pdf) file so that all of your classmates may view it regardless of what computer system they are using. Please be considerate of those who do not have Microsoft and cannot open .doc or .docx files.
Your entire post will consist of

Part I: typed into the text box of the discussion forum.
Part II: attached as a formal letter to your discussion post.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.