Assignment C - Critique of a Current Public Health Intervention or Approach

This paper requires a concise (approximately 2000-3000 word or 7-10 pages double-spaced) critique of an existing public health intervention or approach that addresses a public health issue of the student’s choosing and a concise (approximately 1500 word or 5-page double-spaced) proposal for an alternative intervention or approach to the one criticized. The total length of the paper is thus expected to be between approximately 3500 and 4500 words, or between 12 and 15 double-spaced pages.

The paper must provide a reasoned, evidence-based criticism of a current public health intervention or approach to a public health problem, using social and behavioral science principles, theory, research, and techniques to support the critique’s arguments. The paper should apply course concepts, readings, and perspectives to the critical analysis of the approach being considered.

This is not a review paper. It should not provide a review of a particular public health intervention. Instead, it should criticize a public health intervention or approach, arguing that the intervention or approach in question is flawed. Students may choose to criticize a specific public health intervention or a general approach that is being taken to a public health problem. Intervention includes traditional public health programs as well as policies, services, delivery systems, etc.

The basis of the criticism should be three clearly defined arguments regarding why the existing intervention or approach is flawed. These arguments should be supported, wherever possible, with social and behavioral science principles, theory, and/or research. References to original literature in which the social science theories or models invoked in the paper are laid out or evaluated are ideal.

The student must then take account of the flaws in the design of the intervention or approach critiqued and show how the social sciences can be used to correct these flaws. To demonstrate this, students must develop their own idea for an intervention or approach to the same public health problem that they think would work. They must support their premise that this intervention would work by showing that it addresses (and explaining how it addresses) the specific flaws that were identified in the intervention or approach.

Papers will be evaluated on the persuasiveness of the paper’s arguments and on the degree of documentation and support of the arguments based on social and behavioral science principles, theory, and empirical evidence, not on the position that the student takes on the issue. The counter-proposal aspect of the paper will be evaluated on the persuasiveness of the paper’s arguments and on the degree of documentation and support of the arguments based on social and behavioral science principles, theory, and empirical evidence, not on whether the intervention appears on the surface to be a clever or interesting approach. The evaluation will consider whether or not the student correctly applies social science theories/principles/research to the development of the intervention and the degree to which the student successfully argues why the proposed approach is superior to the original intervention.

The framework for the defense of the new intervention or approach should be three clearly defined sections that address the three arguments made earlier in the paper regarding why the existing intervention or approach is flawed.