Develop a 4–6-page position about a specific health care issue as it relates to a target vulnerable population. Include an analysis of existing evidence and position papers to help support your position. Your analysis should also present and respond to one or more opposing viewpoints.

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.

Assessment Instructions

Scenario

Pretend you are a member of an interprofessional team that is attempting to improve the quality of health care and the outcomes in a vulnerable population. For the first step in your team’s work, you have decided to conduct an analysis of current position papers that address the issue and population you are considering.

In your analysis you will note the team’s initial views on the issue in the population as well as the views across a variety of relevant position papers. You have been tasked with finding the most current standard of care or evidenced-based practice and evaluating both the pros and cons of the issue. For the opposing viewpoints, it is important to discuss how the team could respond to encourage support. This paper will be presented to a committee of relevant stakeholders from your care setting and the community. If it receives enough support, you will be asked to create a new policy that could be enacted to improve the outcomes related to your chosen issue and target population.

The care setting, population, and health care issue that you use for this assessment will be used in the other assessments in this course. Consider your choice carefully. There are two main approaches for you to take in selecting the scenario for this assessment:

1. You may use one of the issues and populations presented in the Vila Health: Health Challenges in Different Populations and Vila Health: Resources for Topical Research media pieces. For this approach, you may consider the population in the context of the Vila Health care setting, or translate it into the context in which you currently practice or have had recent experience.
2. You may select a population and issue that is of interest to you and set them in the context of your current or desired future care setting. While you are free to choose any population of interest, the issue you choose should fall within one of the following broad categories:
   • Genetics and genomics.
     • Sickle cell, asthma, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis.
   • Immunity.
     • Type 1 diabetes, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), congenital neutropenia syndrome.
   • Chronicity.
     • Arthritis, any type of cancer or lung or heart disease, obesity.
   • Addiction.
     • Abuse of alcohol, prescription drugs, tobacco, illegal substances.
   • Emotion and mental health.
     • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, eating disorders, psychosis.

Note: If you choose the second option, contact the FlexPath faculty for your section to make sure that your chosen issue and population will fit within the topic areas for this course.

Instructions

For this assessment you will develop a position summary and an analysis of relevant position papers on a health care issue in a chosen population. The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your submission addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Analysis of Position Papers for Vulnerable Populations Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Analysis of Position Papers for Vulnerable Populations to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.

• Explain a position with regard to health outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
• Explain the role of the interprofessional team in facilitating improvements for a specific issue in a target population.
• Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that could support a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Evaluate the evidence and positions of others that are contrary to a team’s approach to improving the quality and outcomes of care for a specific issue in a target population.
• Communicate an initial viewpoint regarding a specific issue in a target population and a synthesis of existing positions in a logically structured and concise manner, writing content clearly with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
• Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

Example Assessment: You may use the assessment example, linked in the Assessment Example section of the Resources, to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

Additional Requirements

• Length of submission: 4–6 double-spaced, typed pages, not including the title and reference pages. Your plan should be succinct yet substantive. No abstract is required.
• Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3–5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your initial position on the issue, as well as a minimum of 2–3 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that express contrary views or opinions. Resources should be no more than five years old.
• APA formatting: Use the APA Style Paper Template linked in the Resources. An APA Style Paper Tutorial is also provided to help you in writing and formatting your analysis.