Final Paper Instructions (due April 19th)

Paper with Evidence Review and Recommendations Regarding a Brief Intervention

The goal of this assignment is to give you the opportunity to apply the skills you have learned in a new area.

Your paper should be 10-12 double-spaced pages plus a reference list.  Please use 12-point font and 1-inch margins.  The reference list should include citations to each of the papers recommended for your topic.  Additional grading points will be awarded if you seek out 1-5 other relevant papers from the literature and discuss them briefly in your review of the evidence.  Please check with me if you have questions about the format.  Adhering to the format and using the exact headings below will make it much easier for you to write your paper – and it will make it easier for me to find the information that I will be looking for in assigning your grade.  This final project will count for 30% of your semester grade.  Of course, email me well in advance if you want to meet and discuss how you plan to approach this project.

Part 1 (10 points): Describe the public health/primary care problem that the service is designed to address and why you think that problem is important.  

The more specific you make the definition of the problem, the better the rest of the paper will flow.  Be sure to address your comments in the subsequent section of your paper to the specific way you define the problem.  The problem description should include a description of the specific population (e.g., adolescent girls who are obese/overweight) as well as the community and organizational context in which you are considering delivering the new intervention.  End this section with a clear statement as to the objective of your review, e.g., “The purpose of this review is to evaluate the feasibility and potential effectiveness of a brief intervention designed to address obesity among adolescent girls served by a community-based primary care center in Ypsilanti.”

Part 2 (5 points): Briefly describe the sources of the evidence and how new sources (i.e., ones I did not recommend) were identified.

Part 3 (10 points): Screening and case finding. 

Describe what screening and case finding means to you conceptually in this context and what the process or goals might be. Consider possible strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to screening and case finding including, systematic screening of all clients served by the organization, systematic referral of cases that you happen to identify as part of the organization’s work, proactive community-based outreach and screening, etc.  Review specific screening and assessment measures that have been developed and used, commenting on their validity, reliability, ease of administration, required training, etc.  Comment on the concept of false-positives and false-negatives and their implications for workload.  End this section with a summary of your sense of the feasibility, advantages, and disadvantages of using specific assessment tools to identify potential targets (i.e., clients, patients, or community members) for the brief intervention.  If you think none of the available measures are adequate, you can say that (and why you think so) and talk about what alternatives could be developed.

Part 4 (10 points): Randomized trials. 

Briefly summarize at least two randomized trials relevant to your topic.  Describe their design and findings, and discuss the extent to which they provide evidence relevant to delivering a brief intervention in a specific setting.

Part 5 (10 points): Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and guidelines. 

Similar to Part 4, describe 1-2 key reviews that have been done, how they were done, what you’ve learned from them, and how you think they apply (or not) to your question about delivering the brief intervention in a specific context. 

Part 6 (20 points): Weight of the evidence.

Here is your chance to talk about your overall perception of the evidence base – its relevance to your target organization, the amount of evidence available, and what it would mean for this organization to take on this new brief intervention as a service.  Try to come up with both pro’s and con’s for integrating this new service into the organization’s operations.

Part 7 (25 points): Recommendations.

Based on the information summarized and critiqued above, make specific recommendations about delivering the intervention, referring back to the types of evidence you found most compelling – either in favor of, or against moving forward with an investment in this new service.  Try to make your case in a definitive way. Save your concerns/questions about the “weight” of the evidence for the subsequent section.  You also can talk about what it would actually take to deliver this service in terms of things like: staff qualifications, staff trainings, ongoing supervision and quality management, opportunity costs in terms of resources being diverted from other tasks, etc.

Grading:

Your paper will be graded on how well you cover each section and the overall clarity of your writing. Specific sections will be awarded points as indicated above, with the remaining 10 points based on an overall evaluation of the presentation (effort, creativity, readability, and sticking to these instructions).  As noted above, going beyond the recommended readings will earn you extra points. 

 Other things to know:

Cite papers in your reference list appropriately (either APA or JAMA style).  References cited in the text can be either superscripts or bracketed numbers. 

Papers should be submitted via Canvas.  Papers will be downgraded ½ a grade (e.g., A- to B+) for every day they are late.