02 Feb If you have any knowledge

Unit 5 discussion

Setting Goals for Population Health Improvement

One of the more challenging aspects of designing community or population health improvement initiatives is setting goals, or outcomes, that are positive yet attainable. This means that goals should be set at a level where improvements can be seen and measured, but not so high that obtaining the goals is an extremely unlikely outcome.

Part of your Unit 6 assignment will require you to gather and evaluate data about your community and to set goals for a population health improvement initiative. To help you prepare for this, this discussion will focus on allowing you time to collect data on your community and receive feedback on your initial draft of your goals.

The response for this discussion will contain two parts. You will need to address the bullet points under each part to successfully complete this discussion.

Part 1: Evaluate Community Data and Identify a Chronic Health or Epidemiological Issue to Address

Present relevant data about your community.

What is the relevant demographic data for your community?

What does the epidemiological data about your community suggest are its biggest health concerns?

How do environmental factors in the community contribute or pose challenges to the health of residence?

Select one health concern that you saw in the data about your community for which you want to design a health improvement initiative.

Why did you select the health concern that you did?

How do you believe that addressing this health concern will improve the health of your community?

Part 2: Set Evidence-Based Goals

Create at least two goals, or outcomes, for your health improvement initiative. For each of the goals, also address the following:

Provide at least one piece of evidence that supports the relevance and achievability of the goal you created. This could be from a research study about a similar community health issue, from practice guidelines or goals from a relevant professional organization, or from other relevant and credible sources. The idea is to show that the goal you have created is based upon evidence that suggests it is worthy and achievable.

Briefly explain why the evidence you cited offers relevant and valuable support for the goal.

Briefly explain why you believe the goal will create positive health improvements in the community while also being attainable.

Response Guidelines

Review the posts of peers and then select two peers to whom you would like to respond. In your response be sure to address the following. Note: Your responses should be substantive and 100-200 words.

Comment on the community health concern that your peer selected.

Do you agree or disagree that it could be improved through a population health improvement initiative?

If you have any knowledge or experience with health improvement initiatives that have attempted to address similar concerns, are there any insights from those experiences that could help your peer in designing theirs?

Provide a critique of your peer’s goals by doing the following for each goal:

Provide a comment on one positive aspect of the goal. For example, the evidence used to support the goal could be particularly relevant, or the goal could be clearly worded and fit well into the idea of being positive yet attainable.

Provide a comment about an area where a goal could be clarified or revised to make the goal more likely to be attainable while still leading to health improvements. Alternatively, you could choose to comment on the evidence if it does not seem to support the goal very well.

Resources

Discussion Participation Scoring Guide.