For this assessment you will complete an 8 to 10-page evidence-based analysis of your chosen global health issue within your chosen country of context.

For the DNP leader, assessing a community and empowering its members to lead and facilitate change are key components of promoting equitable health care across the globe. In this assessment, you will explore how rapid participatory appraisal (RPA) has been used successfully to address global health issues. You will also be reflecting on how global health issues are really human issues that transcend national boundaries.

Changing or improving a community’s health means engaging and involving community members and stakeholders in the business of change. It means organizing and empowering the vulnerable and disenfranchised as partners in change. It means entering the community with an appreciative and inquisitive attitude and building on existing capacities and paradigms.

Developed in the 1990s as a tool for qualitative action research, RPA is a type of investigation in which the change agent enters into the world of a community or social system to effect change through its people. RPA relies on respectful questioning and may use elements of appreciative inquiry (AI).

Cooperrider et al. (2008) described AI:

Fundamentally, AI is still about changing attitudes, behaviors, and practices through appreciative conversations and relationships—interactions designed to bring out the best in people so that they can imagine a preferred future together that is more hopeful, boundless, and inherently good. It is still about socially constructing a shared future and enacting human systems through the questions asked. And it is still about anticipatory learning—finding those positive, anticipatory images of the future that compel action toward them. (p. vi)

RPA can be a great place to start when seeking to intervene on a current health issue. Taking time to understand all aspects of the community—its people, culture, environment, policy, economics, and values—is imperative to making a lasting, sustainable difference in a health issue.

Reference

Cooperrider, D. L., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J. M. (2008). Appreciative inquiry handbook: For leaders of change (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler.

Assessment Summary

This assignment is an opportunity for you to present a thoughtful analysis of your selected public health problem and the countries and people affected. This could be the health problem that you identified while exploring the Gapminder tool. The goal is to develop a brief project proposal or educational resource that you could present to a relevant public health officer or at a government or NGO chapter meeting. You may also wish to interview relevant stakeholders from the organization you plan to present. This could help provide you with additional ideas for how to pitch your project proposal or educational resource.

Remember to track the experiential hours you spend interviewing, preparing your proposal, and presenting it. This time can count toward your total practicum hours.

Assessment Instructions

For this assessment, you will submit an analysis paper of your selected health issue and its relevant Gapminder data, using current APA style and formatting. In an appendix of this paper, you will include either your project proposal or educational resource for potentially improving outcomes related to your chosen health issue. You should also include a second appendix in which you briefly summarize your experience related to the presentation or meeting related to your proposal or resource.

Make sure you address the following scoring guide criteria in your analysis of a health issue with global implications:

Analyze an international health issue in regard to its effect on individuals, communities, and populations. 

As you address the following questions, be sure to use epidemiological data (this could be Gapminder). 

How pervasive is the problem?

• What is the scope of the problem?

What nations or people are affected?

• Which countries are disproportionately affected?

What inequities exist across countries?

• Analyze data regarding the socioeconomic, political, and cultural influences that affect the global health issue. 
• Because this section is a data analysis, be sure that data support your arguments here. This is another opportunity to include Gapminder data, but you may also want to draw from other sources. 
• How would you describe the population most affected?
• What are the social determinants that affect this problem?
• How do cultural beliefs affect the health problem?
• How do geographical elements affect the health problem?

How does socioeconomic status affect the health problem?

• How do political systems affect the health problem?

Evaluate strategies or research that has been used historically to address the global health issue. 

• Address the historical strategies that have been used. It will be necessary to explore social, economic, political, and environmental concerns to answer this question.
• Develop an educational resource or project proposal focused on driving evidence-based improvements related to your chosen health issue. 
• Consider the target population and the relevant social determinants of health related to this health issue.
• Also, keep in mind the setting in which the project would be occurring or the educational resource be distributed.
• Target this artifact so that it is realistic within the context within which it will be implemented but also target it to the relevant stakeholder whom you will present it to.
• Include this in an appendix of your submission.
• Summarize the practicum experience of presenting a project proposal or educational resource to a relevant public health officer or at a chapter meeting of a relevant health organization. 

Discuss how you felt conveying your proposal or resource.

• Discuss how you felt it was received during the meeting.
• Reflect on anything you might change if you were going to present at a similar meeting in the future.

This should only be two or three paragraphs.

• Include this in an appendix of your assignment submission.
• Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.
• Also, you should enter your hours spent interviewing and collecting data as experiential practicum hours into Capella Academic Portal. Doing this is also part of your grade on this assessment.
• Additional Requirements
• Include the following headings in your paper:

Description of the Problem.

• Social Determinants That Impact the Problem.
• Strategies and Gaps.
• Conclusion.
• Appendix A: Project Proposal or Educational Resource. 
• Title it after the type of artifact you developed.
• Appendix B: Meeting Summary.

Remember to include an introduction to your paper, which is not a heading of its own, and a reference page.