- The document provides instructions for Assessment 3, which requires students to write a letter to the editor of an academic or professional journal advocating for a health policy developed in Assessment 2. - The letter must evaluate current quality of care/outcomes for the issue/population, analyze how this necessitates policy development, justify how the proposed policy will improve care/outcomes, and advocate for similar policies in other settings. - Students must choose an appropriate nursing journal, follow its submission guidelines, and integrate sources using APA style to support their letter.

1. Assessment 3
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Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy
Write a 3–5 page letter to the editor of an academic or
professional journal. Your submission should be succinct yet
substantive.
Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you
completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must
complete the assessments in this course in the order in which
they are presented.
Advocating for new policies is an important aspect of the
master’s-prepared nurse. For new policies to be compelling they
need to be supported by evidence. Supporting data can be used
to illustrate why new policies and interventions are needed to
help address a specific health issue. Compelling data can help
sway the stakeholders and gain support for your policy.
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Another aspect of advocacy is disseminating new policies and
interventions outside of the immediate care environment. This
can be done by reaching out to professional organizations as
well as academic and professional journals. A letter to the
editor is one strategy for disseminating information to a wider
audience, and to potentially enlist support throughout the wider
professional community.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will
demonstrate your proficiency in the following course
competencies and assessment criteria:

2. Competency 1: Design evidence-based advanced nursing care
for achieving high-quality population outcomes.
Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes
for a specific issue in a target population.
Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the
quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target
population.
Competency 2: Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of
interprofessional interventions in achieving desired population
health outcomes.
Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a
developed policy will support efficient and effective
achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
Competency 3: Analyze population health outcomes in terms of
their implications for health policy advocacy.
Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and
outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates
health policy development and advocacy.
Advocate for policy development in other care settings with
regard to a specific issue in a target population.

3. Competency 4: Communicate effectively with diverse
audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with
organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing
content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar,
punctuation, and spelling.
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly
formatting citations and references using APA style.
Competency Map
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Use this online tool to track your performance and progress
through your course.
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ContextNurses have the opportunity to use their skills and
develop programs to keep individuals and communities healthy.
Health is complex however, and the nurse needs to possess
strong advocacy skills to successfully support a cause or
interest. The American Nurses Association’s code of ethics
(2015) describes the responsibility of a nurse to include
working through and with appropriate stakeholders to advocate
for the health of people in and out of the work environment. To
be an effective advocate, there are several important abilities a
nurse must possess, including problem solving, communication,

4. and influencing others. One way a nurse can advocate to a
broader population is through effective letter writing, both to
legislators and through the media, such as with editorials and
research articles.
Reference
American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses
with interpretive statements. Retrieved from
http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStand
ards/CodeofEthicsforNurses/CodeofEthicsForNurses.html
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Questions to ConsiderAs you prepare to complete this
assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to
deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are
encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them
with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or
a member of your professional community. Note that these
questions are for your own development and exploration and do
not need to be completed or submitted as part of your
assessment.
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Assessment 3 will build upon the work you have done for your
previous two assessments. For this assessment, you will be
writing a letter to the editor of an academic or professional
journal as a means to advocate for adoption or development of
policies that will improve the quality of care and outcomes
around your chosen health care issue and vulnerable population.
Looking at your health care issue from a prevention standpoint,
what are the relevant levels of prevention?

5. What would be the benefits and challenges of applying a
specific level of prevention to your chosen issue and
population?
How might one or more approaches to prevention improve the
care and outcomes?
How could your policy be leveraged, or revised, to support the
relevant levels of prevention?
What are relevant strategies that you could use to help advocate
for the policy you are proposing?
How could these strategies help you advocate for your policy
proposal?
How does evidence from the literature support the benefits of
your proposed policy?
How does citing evidence help lend credibility to your
advocacy?
What academic or professional journal would be the best forum
to advocate for your policy?

6. Why is your chosen journal an appropriate forum?
Which advocacy strategies would be most effective in this
forum?
How will you craft your message to best appeal to the likely
audience of your chosen journal?
Toggle Drawer
ResourcesMSN Program Journey
Please review this guide for your degree program. It can help
you stay on track for your practicum experience, so you may
wish to bookmark it for later reference.
MSN Program Journey
|
Transcript
.
Assessment Example
Assessment 3 Example [PDF]
.
SHOW LESS
Suggested Resources
The resources provided here are optional. You may use other

7. resources of your choice to prepare for this assessment;
however, you will need to ensure that they are appropriate,
credible, and valid. The
MSN Program Library Research Guide
can help direct your research, and the Supplemental Resources
and Research Resources, both linked from the left navigation
menu in your courseroom, provide additional resources to help
support you.
Advocacy
Allen, D. D., Lauffenburger, J., Law, A. V., Vanderveen, R. P.,
& Lang, W. G. (2012).
Report of the 2011–2012 standing committee on advocacy: The
relevance of excellent research: Strategies for impacting public
policy
.
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education
,
76
(6), 13–25.
Jansson, B. S., Nyamathi, A., Heidemann, G., Bird, M., Rogers
Ward, C., Brown-Saltzman, K., . . . Kaplan, C. (2016).
Predicting levels of policy advocacy engagement among acute-
care health professionals
.
Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 17
(1), 43–55.
Kung, Y. M., & Rudner Lugo, N. (2015).
Political advocacy and practice barriers: A survey of Florida
APRNs
.
Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners

8. ,
27
(3), 145–151.
Standing up for somebody: What is advocacy and why do we do
it?
(2014).
The Queensland Nurse, 33
(3), 28–29.
Biopsychosocial (Population and Public Health)
Richmond, S. A., D’Cruz, J., Lokku, A., MacPherson, A.,
Howard, A., & MacArthur, C. (2016).
Trends in unintentional injury mortality in Canadian children
1950–2009 and association with selected population-level
interventions
.
Canadian Journal of Public Health, 107
(4/5), e431–e437.
Evidence-Based Practice
Doria, J. B. (2014).
A culturally congruent education group: An evidence-based
approach to improve prenatal care utilization
.
Journal of Nursing Practice Applications & Reviews of
Research
,
4
(2), 94–101.
Letters to the Editor

9. Donzelli, A. (2015).
E-cigarettes may impair ability to quit, but other explanations
are possible
.
American Journal of Public Health, 105
(11), 1.
Lutwak, N., Dill, C., Blosnich, J. R., Bossarte, R. M., &
Silenzio, V. M. B. (2012).
Improved health care for sexual minority and transgender
veterans
.
American Journal of Public Health
,
102
(8), E10–E11.
NursingSchool.org
. (2017).
Ultimate list of nursing journals
. Retrieved from
http://nursingschool.org/ultimate-list-of-nursing-journals/
Pharmacology
Åkesson, A., Larsson, S. C., Discacciati, A., & Wolk, A.
(2014).
Low-risk diet and lifestyle habits in the primary prevention of
myocardial infarction in men
.
Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 64
(13), 1299–1306.

10. Policy
Olson, K. (2016).
Influence through policy: Four steps YOU can take
.
Reflections on Nursing Leadership, 42
(2), 1–3.
Prevention
Berger-Jenkins, E., Rausch, J., Okah, E., Tsao, D., Nieto, A.,
Lyda, E., . . . McCord, M. (2014).
Evaluation of a coordinated school-based obesity prevention
program in a Hispanic community: Choosing Healthy and
Active Lifestyles for Kids/Healthy Schools Healthy Families
.
American Journal of Health Education
,
45
(5), 261–270.
Institute for Work & Health. (n.d.).
What researchers mean by... primary, secondary and tertiary
prevention
. Retrieved from
http://www.iwh.on.ca/wrmb/primary-secondary-and-tertiary-
prevention
Course Resources and Templates
APA Module
Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health

11. Policy Advocacy [DOC]
.
Nursing Masters (MSN) Research Guide
.
Assessment InstructionsScenario
Throughout this course, you have focused on a specific health
issue occurring within a specific population. You researched
position papers regarding this health concern, and you
developed a health policy proposal to positively impact the
health of the affected individuals. It is now time to reach a
greater audience regarding your policy proposal.
Instructions
Develop a letter to the editor of a peer-reviewed academic or
professional nursing journal based on the policy proposal that
you created for Assessment 2. Choose from one of the journals
on the Ultimate List of Nursing Journals (in the Resources) and
go to that journal’s Web site to find out the requirements for
submitting a letter to the editor, such as format requirements,
topics, and word counts. Make sure you select a nursing journal
that covers the topic about which you are going to write. If you
want to use another journal that is not on this list, please make
sure the journal does address health care, because this is the
purpose of the assessment.
The goal of your letter is to be informative about the policy that
you developed for Assessment 2, while also being persuasive
about the need for and benefit of similar policies in other health
care settings. The bullet points below correspond to the grading
criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your submission

12. addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Letter to
the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide
and Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health
Policy Advocacy document to better understand how each
grading criterion will be assessed.
Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes
for a specific issue in a target population.
Look back to the data or scenario you used in Assessment 1 to
address this criterion.
Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and
outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates
health policy development and advocacy.
Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the
quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target
population.
Advocate for policy development in other care settings with
regard to a specific issue in a target population.
Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a
developed policy will support efficient and effective
achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing
content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar,
punctuation, and spelling.
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly

13. formatting citations and references using current APA style (or
the journal's preferred style).
Example Assessment:You may use the assessment example,
linked in the Assessment Example section of the Resources, to
give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the
scoring guide would look like.
Additional Requirements
The submission requirements for your editorial will depend on
the journal you choose. To find out the requirements, go to the
journal's Web site. There should be a section regarding
submissions that will address how to format letters to the editor,
and whether there is a word count limit (there usually is a
limit).
If the journal does not have submission guidelines for the
number of resources required, use 3–5 sources.
To be sure that your instructor knows the submission and
formatting requirements for your letter, include the journal's
guidelines on a separate page at the end of the document you
submit for this assessment.
Length of submission: 3–5 double-spaced typed pages. Your
submission should be succinct yet substantive.