Policy Brief Essay

Policy Brief Essay

Topic Overview

Health disparities among marginalized populations (e.g., people of color, the LGTBQ+ community, women, the homeless, the incarcerated, etc.) and populations from underserved areas (e.g., inner-city neighborhoods with high population densities and high poverty rates and rural areas with low population densities and high poverty rates) is one of the biggest problems that the US Healthcare system has faced and still faces today.

Your assignment is to choose a vulnerable population and examine disparities in health and health care compared to the rest of the U.S. population. Consider the following questions as a guide to get started.

• Which population are you choosing?

• What is/are the most significant disparity/disparities they face?

• What are the underlying causes of these disparities?

• How did they initially develop?

• Have they improved, regressed, or stayed the same?

• How come? (E.g., complex problem that requires significant time and funding; public apathy; lack of action by government, etc.)

• Why is this issue important for society? (Why should your audience care?)

• What actions need to be taken by policymakers (politicians, leaders in healthcare/medicine, ultra-wealthy business leaders) and other voices who hold influence over society (e.g., celebrities, media outlets, major social media influencers, etc.) in order to address the underlying issues to close the disparity gap for your chosen population?

Audience and Writing Style

The audience you are writing this essay for are people who read Health Affairs (a prestigious journal read by academics, clinicians, researchers, and other various experts in the field). The essay should be in the form of a policy brief that you hope to have published in a journal that has a similar scope and reach of Health Affairs. Before writing a single word, make sure to read/skim some policy briefs on the Health Affairs website to get a good understanding of an appropriate format, style, tone, and language of your paper.

Each paper must contain three clear sections a beginning, middle, and end. You can (and should) have subsections within each of the three to properly organize your thoughts for clarity to the reader.

The beginning section should introduce and detail the topic overall, then discuss the issues that need to be addressed and why it’s important, then capped off with your thesis statement. There must be a clearly identifiable one-sentence long thesis statement at the end of your beginning section. (Make sure to click the hyperlink in the previous sentence for tips on what to do and not to do when formulating your thesis statement.)

The middle section should focus on supporting your thesis statement using evidence from your research, and should be the “meat” of the paper. If your thesis is a plan or proposal of some sort, the middle section should also be used to detail the specifics of your plan while explaining your reasoning.

The final section can identify and address potential criticisms, barriers, limitations, etc., and conclude with a very brief recap of your thesis and argument to drive the point home. If your paper’s thesis is a proposal/solution to address a problem of some sort, you can end with what you believe are the first steps to get the ball rolling.

This is a formal essay that is intended for academics, healthcare providers, researchers, and policymakers so please make sure that your writing tone is appropriate and your essay does not contain poor grammar, spelling errors, use of first-person perspective (e.g., “I think” or “My opinion is”), or contractions (e.g., “they’re” should be written out as they are”).

Note: I strongly recommend using Grammarly to check your work after completing your first draft! It is free to create an account if you don’t have one and it will catch 90-95% of issues that are easy to miss. It is a software AI, however, and therefore not perfect; so go with your gut if you disagree with its suggestion.

Essay Requirements

• Your essay must include a title page and abstract. It must be 2,000-3,000 words long (not including title page, abstract, and bibliography). It must include:

• Any appropriate/professional font of your choosing at size 11 or 12.

• Either 1.5 or double spacing with standard default margins.
• The title page and abstract should be single spaced.

• A title page.
• In MS Word, you can click “Insert > Cover Page” for a number of pre-made title pages, some with a dedicated area for an abstract. While you do not have to use any of these, I strongly recommend it because it will save you time while giving it a little style.

• Abstract with 3-5 sentences—either towards the bottom of the title page, or at the top of the next page, above your introduction.

• Original subtitles for each section and subsection of your paper. Put the subtitle for each of the three ‘big’ sections of your paper in bold while italicizing the titles for subsections within the big three.  Be creative, but keep it short—five words max.

• For example—I’ve used Misguided Views as my subtitle for the section where I identified and addressed opposing viewpoints tin a paper I wrote. Look at various briefs on Health Affairs for more examples.

• Page numbers at the bottom of each page (middle or right side of the paper).

• Your name along with the title of your essay in the running header of each page. (Up where it says HLTH 2200-01W on this document.)

• A bibliography at the end—you may use any citation style you wish (MLA, APA, AMA, Chicago) as long as it is consistent for all citations.

• I suggest using the endnotes function for your bibliography because it helps with organization, but this is not a requirement. If you do use it, make sure you use endnotes and NOT footnotes. Endnotes will appear at the very end of your paper while footnotes will appear on the bottom of whatever page your citation is on.

• Your essay must include a minimum of five to ten (5-10) citations with at least three (3) from peer reviewed journals.

• When you are doing your research, in addition to the databases available through the university library, I strongly recommend using Google Scholar instead of Google. This way, most of your results will be peer-reviewed articles.

• Another great resource to find primary sources in journals is by looking at the citations in the article you are reading because the primary source will almost certainly be cited.

• You must always use primary sources for your citations, regardless of whether it is from an academic journal or if you are citing statistics.

• Primary sources for statistics will likely come from the HHS (including all of the departments within it like the CDC and NIH) website or states’ department of public health websites.