As public health professionals, it is imperative to continuously work toward improving the social determinants of healthLinks to an external site. in the communities where we work, live, go to school, and play. The beauty of theory is that it can offer important guidance on how to conceptualize these health determinants and create effective, culturally appropriate interventions. This project gives you the opportunity to gain valuable practice in doing just that – applying a theory of your choosing to a social determinant of health-related issue of your choosing to develop a theory and data-driven intervention.
As you know, this course is part of a graduate certificate program with its own outcomes. This project will allow you to grow in your skills along the following important public health scopes of practice, which are also your Public Health Equity certificate outcomes.
- Evaluate how populations are impacted by social determinants of health.
- Use data-driven decision-making and community partnering approaches to identify, implement and evaluate solutions to public health issues.
- Design culturally sensitive strategies to improve health equity and social justice.
Scenario:
For this project, let’s imagine that you are a public health practitioner in your community. In recent years, there has been intense interest in the social determinants of health as a means to assess and improve health outcomes in your region. Your public health organization is going to apply for a national grant with a goal to improve health outcomes on the local to national level. Potential impact on one or more social determinants of health is the framework by which all proposals will be evaluated. A major criterion on the grant proposal evaluation rubric is theory to practice. Your regional public health director is aware that you are taking this course. The director is also acutely aware that health behaviors seldom occur in a vacuum. People are situated in communities, workplaces, schools, and environments that support or deter healthy behaviors and health outcomes. The director has charged you to come up with a proposal to address a pressing health behavior issue in your community that is related to one or more social determinants of health. Your director wants you to present your proposal in a month. Your proposal must include the following components:
- Focus on a specific theory with application to your planned intervention
- Use of data and best practice literature to support your planned intervention
- An intervention for a health behavior (to start a healthy behavior or stop an unhealthy one) that
- fosters inclusion and access to health care and
- directly addresses one or more social determinants of health as defined by the U.S. Healthy People 2030 and the World Health Organization. You may find this article on the links between the health behaviors of people and their environments helpful in framing your project.
Pick two of the above-listed behaviors and describe at least three factors that, in your experience and/or opinion, influence people to participate in that behavior. You should think about a wide array of characteristics or situations that may play a role in that behavior.
Review of the Literature and Background - Module 4:
Once you have received instructor approval early in Module 3, you will start by conducting a preliminary literature search.
Find your sources. First, locate references for at least 7 peer-reviewed articles (different than those assigned for this course). Five should be from the university library. Other sources can be government or NGO reports or open data sources; these will be considered academic resources. These should be sources that you plan on citing in your paper to demonstrate that there is adequate published literature on this topic. The term goes by quickly, so choosing your literature sources early on sets you up for a smooth process as you progress through the project. Most of the literature that you cite in your paper should be either empirical studies or literature reviews that are published as journal articles or book chapters. You can cite non-academic electronic sources, but they must be no more than 20% of your resources, so if you have 7 peer reviewed articles or other academic sources, you can have two non-academic sources such as news sources.
Write your literature review. Now that you have your sources, you will need to review, take careful notes, and synthesize what you learn. Here is what you will include in this installment of your proposal.
- Introduction paragraph that states what you will be addressing in this proposal. This can evolve over time, but create an initial draft.
- Then, provide a description of the health behavior that you have chosen. Include a description of the positive and negative health outcomes associated with the behavior. Be sure to support your statements with references. This should not be opinion-based or personal-knowledge-based.
- You might choose a health behavior that involves physical activity, stress management, addiction, nutrition, safer sex behaviors, vaccine acceptance, sleep, water use reduction (drought), or a more public health behavior for change (e.g., recycling, food waste reduction, water use reduction, plastics use reduction, etc.).
- Next, discuss human demographic differences in this health behavior. Are there certain groups that are more likely to perform this behavior? Are there groups that are less likely to perform it? Are there environmental or interpersonal influences that may be influencing the likelihood of performing this behavior? Use references to support your statements.
- Next, discuss how your chosen determinant of health impacts this health behavior. What is the interplay between this chosen determinant and your health behavior? What external forces help to drive this health behavior? Use references to support your statements.
- Identify and summarize an interpersonal health behavior theory that is related to your chosen health behavior. In your discussion, be sure to emphasize specific constructs within the theory that are most closely associated with the behavior. Use references to support your statements.
- Start with a brief general overview.
- Then apply the theory to your chosen behavior.
- Give an example of a study or intervention that used your chosen theory to address your chosen health behavior. What were the results?
- Discuss the pros and cons of using your chosen theory to address your chosen behavior. Do you think the theory effectively describes the behavior? What other factors do you think are important to describing the behavior, but are not represented in the theory? What changes or additions would you make to the theory to make it more effective in this case? What inadvertent disparities or oppressive influences could impact application of this theory to people from certain groups/populations? Consider both regional and global perspectives.
- You may choose from the following individual/interpersonal behavior change theories:
- Health behavior model
- Theory of reasoned action
- Theory of planned behavior
- Transtheoretical model
- Next, identify and summarize a systems/community health behavior theory that is related to your chosen health behavior. In your discussion, be sure to emphasize specific constructs within the theory that are most closely associated with the behavior. Use references to support your statements.
- Start with a brief general overview.
- Then apply the theory to your chosen behavior and to your chosen determinant of health.
- Give an example of a study or intervention that used your chosen theory to address your chosen health behavior. What were the results?
- Discuss the pros and cons of using your chosen theory to address your chosen behavior. Do you think the theory effectively describes the behavior? The social determinant of health? What other factors do you think are important to describing the behavior, but are not represented in the theory? What changes or additions would you make to the theory to make it more effective in this case? What inadvertent disparities or oppressive influences could impact application of this theory to certain groups/populations? Consider both regional and global perspectives.
You may choose from the following systems/community theories.- Ecological/ecosystems theory
- Diffusion of innovations model
- Communication theory
- Provide a concluding paragraph or two that synthesizes your findings, states which theory you have decided to focus on, and why.
Please follow these guidelines for organizing your literature review:
- This portion of your proposal should be 6-8 double-spaced pages, not including your cover page and reference page.
- Cover page: proposal title, your name, course number, date, running head, and a statement that you have complied with the requirements of academic honesty in all aspects of your submitted work.
- No abstract is required. In your introduction, state the rationale and purpose of your proposal. Describe the structure or how the proposal will be organized.
- Please use several subheadings to break up the proposal into logical sections. At a minimum, use the following headings: introduction, health behavior, interpersonal theory, community theory, chosen theory, and conclusion.
- You might want to spend 1–2 pages describing the theories you selected, but the bulk of the paper should be how each theory is applied to specific health behaviors and to the social determinant of health that you chose.
- When describing prior studies, please describe their methods succinctly (i.e., mention sample size, how recruited) and consider giving actual study results rather than just broad findings (e.g., “One study of 625 Georgia college students recruited through a school newspaper ad found that 27.4% reported searching for sexual health information online in the past 30 days”). This is the norm in public health communication.
- As with all writing, please use clear topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph to guide the reader.
- Use of APA formatting in all sections of this article is required.