Assignments and Evaluations

As a member of your governmental health agency, the team that you are on is charged with assessing your constituent population for its risk of a potential epidemic. It is requested that your team create a population health profile, and identify specific subgroups that are at-risk for infection and transmission. You are asked specifically to review existing population and health data to create a fact sheet for program planners and policy makers.

Due: Sunday June 23, 2019 @ 11:59pm via Blackboard

ASSIGNMENT #1 Prompt

The lead health officer for your jurisdiction (Alameda County Public Health Department, California Department of Public Health, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services), in collaboration with governmental representatives, wishes to create a plan of action should an epidemic of Zika occur in your constituent population (Alameda County, State of California, United States of America). You are a member of a task force that has been asked to recommend a plan for infectious disease control, based on relevant health policies and regulations. Your task force is expected to create a policy brief highlighting at least one major policy intervention (ideally, two or three) which is/are within the authority of your assigned organization – the recommendations should be quickly actionable – to promptly be put into effect once Zika infection and associated disease is found in the population whose health you are responsible for protecting. Your plan should also take into account current climate projections to estimate likelihood of the presence of Zika vectors in your jurisdiction. In other words, how should control of Zika be incorporated into climate adaptation plans for your jurisdiction? Students will be using PolicyMap to retrieve, organize, and analyze relevant data for this assignment.

Due: Sunday July 14, 2019 @ 11:59pm via Blackboard

ASSIGNMENT #2 Prompt

As part of a more comprehensive prevention and containment effort, you have been assigned to an outreach team to ensure that members of your community are prepared to prevent and reduce burden of disease related to Zika infection. Based on the available evidence, you are asked to develop and disseminate a community-based strategy to the population you serve to minimize the impacts of a potential epidemic.

Due: Presented during assigned time for class during Week of FINAL EXAMINATIONS (July 29)

ASSIGNMENT #3 Prompt

Attendance at both the lecture and tutoring sessions are required and necessary to perform well in the class, both as an individual and as a member of your team. Participation points will be assigned in both the lecture and tutoring sections. Participation points in lecture will be earned through the use of iClickers (information about iClickers can be found in the "Course Materials" section).  Participation points in the tutorial sections will come in the form of in-class exercises and homework assignments.

Students will be excused for absence without penalty only in very extenuating circumstances.  Such absences include those relating to an illness, injury, or family emergencies. If a student is unable to attend class for any of the above reasons or similar issues, s/he should let the Professor and Tutorial Instructor know as soon as possible.

If a student has religious or civic obligations (e.g., jury duty), and is unable to attend a lecture or tutoring section, s/he should let the Professor and Tutorial Instructor know in advance.

Working well on a team is essential to performing well in HSC 315. The primary deliverables (i.e. Population Factsheet, Policy Action Plan, and Community Presentation) are team assignments and will be completed as a team. In all teamwork settings, it is critically important to be a responsible and responsive team member. Learning how to become a better team member and learning how to solve problems in a group setting are important skills well beyond HSC 315. Your team work will be assessed using CATME. Your teamwork grade will be determined by averaging your scores for the entire quarter (seeing grading rubric below). In addition, because working well in a team is a learned and practiced skill, demonstrating improvement over the semester, which is demonstrated by improving scores from one survey to the next, will also be considered when determining your final teamwork grade.

(PLO 2, 3)

Each student must complete all CATME surveys within the designated time period. The surveys are essential to team productivity. The surveys allow the student, his/her team, and the instructors to identify areas of strength upon which to build, as well as to identify challenge areas that can be addressed in order to increase team and individual productivity. For each survey that is not completed, one letter grade will be deducted from the student's final grade (e.g. an A becomes an B with one missed survey; an A becomes a C with two missed surveys, etc.). It is strongly recommended that students and teams set reminders on your calendars for the dates of each survey.