Requirements:

This paper should clearly and comprehensively discuss a chronic health disease.  Select a topic from the list provided by your course faculty.

The paper should be organized into the following sections:

1. Introduction (Identification of the problem) with a clear presentation of the problem as well as the significance and a scholarly overview of the paper’s content. No heading is used for the Introduction per APA current edition. 

2. Background and Significance of the disease, to include:  Definition, description, signs and symptoms.  Incidence and prevalence of statistics by state with a comparison to national statistics pertaining to the disease.  If after a search of the library and scholarly data bases, you are unable to find statistics for your home state, or other states, consider this a gap in the data and state as much in the body of the paper. For instance, you may state something like, “After an exhausting search of the scholarly data bases, this writer is unable to locate incidence and/or prevalence data for the state of ….  This indicates a gap in surveillance that will be included in the “Plan” section of this paper.  

3. Surveillance and Reporting: Current surveillance methods and mandated reporting processes as related to the chronic health condition chosen should be specific.
4. Epidemiological Analysis:  Conduct a descriptive epidemiology analysis of the health condition. Be sure to include all of the 5 W’s:  What, Who, Where, When, Why.  Use details associated with all of the W’s, such as the “Who” which should include an analysis of the determinants of health.  Include costs (both financial and social) associated with the disease or problem.
5. Screening and Guidelines:  Review how the disease is diagnosed and current national standards (guidelines).  Pick one screening test (review Week 2 Discussion Board) and review its sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, and cost. 
6. Plan:  Integrating evidence, provide a plan of how a nurse practitioner will address this chronic health condition after graduation.  Provide three specific interventions that are based on the evidence and include how you will measure outcomes (how will you know that the interventions have utility, are useful?)  Note:  Consider primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions as well as the integration of health policy advocacy efforts.  All interventions should be based on evidence – connected to a resource such as a scholarly piece of research. 
7. Summary/Conclusion: Conclude in a clear manner with a brief overview of the keys points from each section of the paper utilizing integration of resources. 
8. The paper should be formatted and organized into the following sections which focus on the chosen chronic health condition.
9. Adhere to all paper preparation guidelines (see below).

Preparing the Paper:

1. Page length: 7-10 pages, excluding title page and references.  
2. APA format current edition
3. Include scholarly in-text references throughout and a reference list.
   
4. Include at least one table that the student creates to present information. Please refer to the “Requirements” or rubric for further details.  APA formatting required.  
5. Length: Papers not adhering to the page length may be subject to either (but not both) of the following at the discretion of the course faculty: 1.  Your paper may be returned to you for editing to meet the length guidelines, or, 2. Your faculty may deduct up to five (5) points from the final grade.