Assessment 3 Instructions: Letter to the Editor: Population ... 04/09/2023, 10:22

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Assessment 3 Instructions: Letter to the Editor: Population

Health Policy Advocacy

Write a letter to the editor of a scholarly journal. The length and format of the letter is dictated by your choice

of journal.

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Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore,

you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.

Advocating for new policies is an important aspect of the master’s-prepared nurse. For new policies to be

compelling they need to be supported by evidence. Supporting data can be used to illustrate why new policies

and interventions are needed to help address a specific health issue. Compelling data can help sway the

stakeholders and gain support for your policy.

Another aspect of advocacy is disseminating new policies and interventions outside of the immediate care

environment. This can be done by reaching out to professional organizations as well as academic and

professional journals. A letter to the editor is one strategy for disseminating information to a wider audience and

to potentially enlist support throughout the wider professional community.

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Nurses have the opportunity to use their skills and develop programs to keep individuals and communities

healthy. Health is complex, however, and the nurse needs to possess strong advocacy skills to successfully

support a cause or interest. The American Nurses Association’s (2015) code of ethics describes the responsibility

of a nurse to include working through and with appropriate stakeholders to advocate for the health of people in

and out of the work environment. To be an effective advocate, there are several important abilities a nurse must

possess, including problem-solving, communication, and influencing others. One way a nurse can advocate to a

broader population is through effective letter writing, both to legislators and through the media, such as with

editorials and research articles.

Reference

American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements.

http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/CodeofEthicsforNurses/Code-of-Ethics-For-

Nurses.html

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Throughout this course, you have focused on a specific health issue occurring within a specific population. You

researched position papers regarding this health concern, and you developed a health policy proposal to

positively impact the health of the affected individuals. It is now time to reach a greater audience regarding your

policy proposal.

You are going to write a letter to the editor of a peer-reviewed nursing journal. Choose from one of the journals

in the Ultimate List of Nursing Journals and go to the journal’s Web site to find out the requirements for

submitting an editorial, such as format requirements, topics, and word counts. Make sure you select a nursing

journal that covers the topic about which you are going to write. If you want to use another journal that is not on

this list, please make sure the journal does address health care, because this is the purpose of the assessment.

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For this assessment, you will write a letter to the editor of a scholarly journal. Your goal is to be informative

about the policy that you developed for your previous Biopsychosocial Population Health Policy Proposal

assessment, while also being persuasive about the need for and benefit of similar policies in other health care

settings. The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your

assessment submission addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Letter to the Editor: Population

Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy

Advocacy [DOC] to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.

Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.

Look back to the data or scenario you used in your previous assessment to address this criterion.

Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target

population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.

Justify why the developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific

issue in a target population.

Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target

population.

Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of the policy will support efficient and effective

achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.

Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct

use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA

style (or the journal's preferred style).

Example assessment: You may use the Assessment 3 Example [PDF] to give you an idea of what a Proficient or

higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

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The submission requirements for your editorial will depend on the journal you choose. To find out the

requirements, go to the journal's Web site. There should be a section regarding submissions that will address

how to format letters to the editor, and whether there is a word count limit (there usually is a limit).

If the journal does not have submission guidelines for the number of resources required, use 3–5 sources.

To be sure that your faculty knows the submission and formatting requirements for your letter, include the

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journal's guidelines on a separate page at the end of the document you submit for this assessment.

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By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course

competencies and scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Design evidence-based advanced nursing care for achieving high-quality population

outcomes.

Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target

population.

Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a

specific issue in a target population.

Competency 2: Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of interprofessional interventions in achieving

desired population health outcomes.

Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and

effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.

Competency 3: Analyze population health outcomes in terms of their implications for health policy

advocacy.

Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target

population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.

Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target

population.

Competency 4: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style,

consistent with organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.

Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with

correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references.

SCORING GUIDE

Use the scoring guide to understand how your assessment will be evaluated.

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VIEW SCORING GUIDE

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