Principles of Public Health Practice/Literature Analysis

You will research and turn in an individual literature analysis comparing and contrasting the concepts of Primary Health Care and Primary Care, Population Health, and Health Promotion (as defined by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion). Central to your analysis will be a discussion on how these concepts integrate equity and participation of all affected parties in decision-making, implementation and evaluation and resource allocation associated with protecting and promoting health and preventing disease.

This assessment is a 1000-word (not including references) piece and comprises 20% of your overall mark.

If it has been awhile since you have written an essay or you did not receive a strong grounding in the practice in secondary college, you might wish to review the topics in this Youtube video play list. Do not watch it all at once. Use it as a resource. Watch it here: here The topics covered by the videos are:

How to think critically—Ben Powers
Argument & Evidence in Expository Essay Writing
Compare and Contrast Essay
Five Paragraph Essay: Three formulas for the basic essay
Basic English Essay Skills: Build a Strong Body Paragraph
Basic English Essay Skills: Paragraph Transitions & Connections
Basic Essay Skills: Conclusion Paragraph
How to Write an Introduction Paragraph for Your Essay
Avoid Plagiarism in Research Papers with Paraphrases & Quotations
How to Use Quotations In Writing Essays-APA or MLA

A former student recommends:

La Trobe’s academic writing skills page (includes essay writing guides) http://www.latrobe.edu.au/students/learning/develop-skills/writing

The book Get Great Marks for Your Essays, Reports, and Presentation by John Germov is also useful.

Please note that you should read through these steps a few times before you start going through each step! Repeat steps as often as required.

Step One

Review the Lectorial material on Echo360 for week three. Also, have a look at the criteria for an essay or a literature analysis (check out the link below). Remember, you are learning a language; so, you have to immerse yourself a little. However, do not go overboard. You are not writing an encyclopedia article that is a last word on the subject. Be sensible about how you go about this task. But, do keep in mind that it will help you with the rest of your assessments.

Step Two

Review the material provided in the introduction to each of the topics leading up to your assessment due date. You will find a general story and a specific set of background notes with references. Obtain copies of the material referenced and review the references by scanning them for key concepts.

Step Three

Review each of the tutorial or workshop sheets that provide you with additional readings or resources for understanding the concepts. Take the time to watch any videos or scan any of the articles with a view to identifying the various ways that the key terms are used. This will actually save you some time later. Carefully consider what articles like "How to turn a stack of papers into a literature review" might be getting at. Remember, you are learning a new language. Like any language, words can have shades of meaning and be used somewhat differently by different people. Your literature analysis is meant to pick up on this and take note of how the words are being used by different types of practitioners from clinicians to public health advocates.

Step Four

If you need to, collect your own information on: a. primary care and primary health care, b. population health, and c. health promotion. (You may use Wikipedia as a starting point; but, you may not use that material in your literature analysis--follow out the reference trail.) Look for information that explains these concepts and gives examples on how they are put into practice. You should be using themes such as Equity and Participation to help you sort out how people are using the language. Remember, review the Lectorial material, especially the Echo360 recording, for Topic Three.

Step Five

Try to find information from the perspective of a practitioner, consumer/patient, policy maker and community health group. Keep a look out for related words that help to expand the definition of the key concepts. Here are a number of words that are worth considering: quality, evidence, policies, resources, capacity development, determinants, outcomes, processes, perspectives, inter-disciplinary, communities and consumers/patients.

Step Six

For each of the main concepts (a. primary care and primary health care, b. health promotion, and c. population health), use as many cards (or sheets of paper; or spreadsheet workbooks, and so forth) as you need to summarise the different ways that each of the words are being used and be sure to note the sources. Start to sort the different implicit and explicit definitions for each concept into related groups. Compare and contrast the different ways people use the concepts by noting their similarities and differences. Ask yourself why there might be differences. Pay particular attention to how they treat of or relate to Equity and Participation. Also, pay attention to who is writing the articles and ask yourself who were the intended audiences. Also, note how the authors use the various words in step five.

Step Seven

For each of the main concepts write 300-400 word summaries of what you have found in draft form. Then, carefully read through what you have written and try to be more concise. Look for long sentences that ramble a bit and turn them into shorter sentences that are easier to follow. Eliminate unnecessary repetition. Rephrase what you are saying so that one idea flows smoothly into another. Pay attention to your grammar and your punctuation. Try to reduce your total word count as much as possible without loosing the sense of what you are trying to say. Read what you have written aloud. When we read silently, our brain can add words that are not actually on the paper. In this way, we often overlook what is missing for other readers. Paraphrase the material from your sources. Quoted material will not count in your word count. Keep quotes to an absolute minimum (no more than ten percent of the total of your own words). Failure to follow proper academic integrity practices will be considered a failure to demonstrate an essential competency and may result in your receiving no mark for the assessment.

Step Eight

Write an introduction to the analysis that says what you will be doing (comparing and contrasting the various meanings of the concepts and identifying a coherent way of thinking about them that makes sense of as much of the material as possible). Write a conclusion that summarises what you have found and says why this is important (it is important to know how the words might be used by different people to ensure that we are communicating clearly and acting in a way that achieves the best good). Reduce your total word count to 1000 words (plus or minus eight percent). Be sure to include your 'intext' references and provide a reference section at the end. Follow the style that is found in the introductions to the topics (the 'intext' references in the background material and the items in 'references and resources' section of the topic). The reference section does not count in the total word count.

Step Nine

Be sure to put your name and student identification number, the subject name and code, the assessment number (one), the tutorial session and your tutor's name on a cover page (not counted in total word count) and ensure that you have your name and student indentification number on each successive page. Please number each page for ease of reference in any communication. Upload the assessment to the LMS before the due date. If you need an extension, make your request known (using the proper forms) three working days before the due date (by close of business [COB] on the preceding Tuesday, or by 5 p.m. on 1 April 2014--no kidding).

All the best.