Prepare a public health scoping paper on an emerging public health issue
Topic overview
Scoping papers are frequently prepared by public health professionals to assist in decision making for funding and intervention choices.
Assessment criteria
This assessment will measure your ability to:
- Develop an effective executive summary (10%)
- Introduce your topic (10%)
- Demonstrate the determinants of health, inequalities and inequities of the public health issue, using relevant evidence to support (50%)
- Make recommendations and draw conclusions (20%)
- Use appropriate referencing (10%)
Guidelines
You are working as a Public Health Officer for a public health organisation and your Manager has asked you to prepare a public health scoping paper on an emerging public health issue (select one issue from the list on p. 2). Your paper will form the basis for the development of future public health interventions to change and improve the health and wellbeing of the population. Given this, your paper must present a clear, concise and accurate picture of the emerging public health problem based on the available evidence.
Your task is to use evidence to:
- Identify the significance of the issue.
- Analyse the underlying determinants, inequalities and inequities that are relevant to the issue.
- Identify and appraise evidence-based public health approaches to address the identified underlying determinants, inequalities and inequities. Ensure a mix of intervention are included in this appraisal.
- Identify and discuss the contextual factors that may influence, enable or hinder public health interventions to address the issue. Consider the political, social and cultural context, stakeholder priorities, governance, advocacy, capacity and information.
- Recommend the next steps for your organisation.
Select from one of the following issues:
- Environmental sustainability
- Population ageing
- Workplace health
- Non-communicable diseases
Once you have selected your topic from the list, you will need to narrow down the focus; within your topic select a specific issue. The topics provided are a guide for you to select an issue from within these broad areas. You also need to select a country or area to focus on this. For example, if you select Australia, you may wish to narrow this down to Victoria or regional Victoria. Note: you may choose to focus on any country/area drawing on evidence from around the world (e.g. you may select India as your country and draw on evidence from India, Australia, Europe). Please make sure you clearly specify the country/area on which you are focusing. When reporting evidence from an area or country that is not your focus, you must make this clear. For example, if you are focusing on India and you present evidence from Australia you would need to ensure that you state where the evidence is from and whether or not it is relevant to your area/country.
Scoping papers identify all aspects of a public health problem to help decision makers set priorities and consider intervention options. A key skill for any public health professional is the ability to unpack emerging public health issues and fully scope the problem before considering the solutions.
Your scoping paper aims to make the needs of the population central, ensuring the evidence public health approaches are based on is appraised and contextual factors that may impact on the delivery of public health interventions are considered. A successful scoping report helps to ensure the issue is well understood with defined parameters and is the first step in ensuring the most appropriate interventions can be explored.
In preparing your report consider the following bulleted list, which serves as a guide to help you think about what to include to ensure a clear, coherent and evidence-based report.
- Title page. Provide a short heading (title) that describes the focus of the scoping paper, your name and your student number.
- Executive summary. The executive summary should not include any information that is not contained in the report. It is suggested that you write this section last. It is a high-level summary for those in your organisation who may not have the time to read the full report but are still required to make decisions about future actions. Think about the main messages you want to get across to senior-level people. If you only had the length of an elevator ride to present your report, what would you say?
- Table of contents. Provide a list of each section in the report including the page number on which the section starts.
- Introduction. The purpose of this section is to set up the context of the issue for the reader including the significance of the issue and why it is important. Provide a brief summary of the issue including:
- What the public health issue is
- The area/country that is the focus of your scoping paper
- The significance of the public health issue in the area you are focusing on (e.g. the extent of the issue and the population groups most impacted)
- A statement that sets out what the rest of the scoping paper includes
- Body of the report. Give this section a relevant heading. You can also include sub-headings. The purpose of the body of the scoping paper is to provide the reader with a synthesis of the available evidence about the public health issue in the area you have selected. It should include the following:
- The determinants of health, inequalities and inequities of the public health issue
- An appraisal of evidence-based public health approaches that have the potential to address the identified underlying determinants, inequalities and inequities
- Contextual factors that may influence or hinder public health interventions to address the issue (such as the political, cultural and social contexts and stakeholder priorities)
- Conclusions and recommendations. Conclusions summarise what you can conclude from the evidence presented. It is not a summary of what you have already presented. What is the take-home message?
- Your conclusion should include 2–3 sentences that summarise the ‘nub’ (crux or central point) of the issue or the aspect of the issue where a future public health intervention might be most useful (based on the evidence presented in the body of the scoping paper).
- Based on the evidence presented in the body of the scoping paper, what do you recommend to your Manager as the next steps in the process of understanding the public health issue? For example, would you recommend any of the following steps to your Manager?
- Collect information from stakeholders and the community about their views on the issue and how it impacts them
- Identify the points of intervention that are most strategic or likely to have the most impact
- Identify any ‘low-hanging fruit’ or areas that can be intervened reasonable easily or quickly
- Do not introduce any new information or evidence in the conclusions and recommendations section.
The evidence you use in your scoping paper should draw on a diversity of types and sources including:
- Research evidence (e.g. peer-reviewed journal articles and sources of population data and registries)
- Organisational evidence (e.g. relevant organisational reports, grey literature)
Note, the above is a guide to assist you think about where to find evidence rather than a list of all of the evidence you must include. As a minimum, you must include research evidence. You are expected to include in-text citations for all information provided in the scoping paper.