Research

The paper's purpose is to provide practical experience in effectively using health care research resources through library databases and Internet search engines and to enable you to write more effectively about public health administration topics. The length of the paper should be from eight to ten double-spaced pages, not including the title page, references, or any charts or tables. The paper must meet all APA standards and your references must include at least five peer-reviewed journal articles.  Grading criteria will include organization, the depth of fact-finding, the depth of analysis, sophistication of thinking, strength and clarity of writing, paper formatting, and the degree to which the paper followed the published guidelines. See the Standardized Writing Rubric in the Course Content for specific criteria.

Please select one of the following topics for your research paper: 

A. Public health partnerships are an important tool for stretching limited resources. Using the literature and information found in this course, explain in detail the different types of partnerships (strategic orientation, categories, and characteristics) and use that information to conduct an analysis of two different public health partnerships. In your analysis, you should describe the purposes, structure, goals of each of the organizations and the two partnerships and how the organizations quantify or measure their success. You should conclude by comparing and contrasting the two partnerships and describe any similarities and differences between them, identify whether one program appears to have advantages over the other, and explain why. 

B. Interview a senior leader or manager in a public health agency about a program that they work in. You should describe the leader/manager's  background and describe his or her public health program in detail (include its purpose, role in public health, leadership, funding sources and amounts, and the measures that the program uses to measure its success). You should then describe and analyze three significant leadership challenges that the leader/manager faces in their work and describe how/if they have been able to resolve them. You must then use the literature to provide context and to conduct a detailed analysis of at least one of the challenges. Your analysis should result in a minimum of three potential solutions for each of the challenges. Finally, please remember to be courteous to the person and send a thank you note after the interview. Note that interviews may be in person or on the telephone. 

C. Using an accepted change management framework (one example might be "Leading Change" by John Kotter), analyze a public health organization that has undergone or attempted to undergo transformational change. Describe what the organization did (or did not do), what was successful and what was not successful, and describe leader behaviors and actions that had an impact on the effort.  Describe the degree to which the organization followed or did not follow the change management framework that you cite. Ground your analysis with references from the literature.