The final paper will be your opportunity to demonstrate your skills in critically assessing health promotion programs and processes with an emphasis on evidence and ethics. For your final paper, you...

The final paper will be your opportunity to demonstrate your skills in critically assessing health promotion programs and processes with an emphasis on evidence and ethics. For your final paper, you will write a 2000 word piece similar to a short peer-reviewed journal article. The paper should include an Introduction/Background, Methods, Results and Discussion/Conclusion section. You can think of this as an evidence-informed critical assessment of the literature on a specific health topic which incorporates what you have learned in the unit about Health Promotion. No abstract is required for this assessment. Do include references (APA 6th; minimum 20). It is recommended you approach writing this paper as though you intend to submit it for publication to a peer-reviewed journal. A few example literature review articles will be provided from which you can model your own work (note these are just examples, may be more detailed and in-depth than required for the assessment, and may not follow exactly the required format detailed below). We encourage you to seek out other literature reviews on or similar to your own topic for further examples. Additional resources will also be posted here to help in the process of conducting a literature review. Introduction/Background: In this section, you need to identify a specific health issue (e.g., Cardiovascular Disease) and a justifiable risk factor/behaviour (e.g., high cholesterol due to dietary choices). Start with the broad scope of the issue, such as, “Worldwide, cardiovascular disease accounts for xx% of the total burden of disease.” Work through the issue and related risk factors to focus in on a specific risk factor and associated behaviour. End the section with identification of a specific target population including justification and a rationale for needing to examine health promotion programmes that may help address the health issue in the identified population. Methods: The methods section should be relatively brief and provide a clear and concise description of how you systematically went about identifying the literature you reviewed for the paper. You may wish to consider using a diagram to depict your logic. This section should include identification of library databases searched (e.g., MEDLINE) and key words used as well as your criteria for picking articles to include and a rationale for all the above. Results: The results should provide the reader with a critical synthesis of what has been learned about health promotion programmes aimed at addressing the health issue. It is suggested you organize the literature into 2-3 key themes (maybe more depending on your framework for analysing them; e.g., a social determinants framework would have 10 or so key areas). Describe what has been learned on each theme using the literature to support. Also include a section on theoretical frameworks used in the programmes you have learned about from the articles discussing strengths and weaknesses. Discussion/Conclusion: Based on the results you have presented, provide 2-3 key points of discussion and relate back to the original health issue, risk factor and target population identified in the Introduction. This section should leave the reader understanding not only what has been learned from the review but also have a sense your evidence-informed opinion of the direction we should take going forward. Include a brief conversation on ethical considerations. Conclude with a paragraph summarising the main points you want to make and recommendations for the future.