The Health Assessment Project will be submitted in two milestones before submission of the final report. Each milestone includes two steps. The final project submission will need to address all feedback received on both milestone assignments and must be submitted as one cohesive APA formatted document.

• 1st Milestone: Two steps – (1) Data Gathering and (2) Data Presentation:
  • Step 1: Data Gathering
    • Research the most recent health assessment data for a county in the state of Florida using only the following online database:
      • Florida Health Charts (Links to an external site.)
    • Choose a county to report on based on your current or prior residence. If you are not or have never resided in the state of Florida, you can either locate a report with similar data in your state of residence or choose Escambia county in Florida (i.e., UWF campus location) for your project data. Be thorough on your research and make sure you are reporting both county data and state benchmarks for most current year available.

• Be careful to pull comparable data and record units. For example, you cannot compare whole/total number of cases of TB in the state to whole/total numbers in the county. Data that is comparable is reported either in percentage format, per 100,000 population, or per 1,000 population.Take note of units as you pull the data.
• Locate at least THREE indicators of data in ALL of the following FIVE categories. Although other categories are reported, make sure to use only these five assigned categories when pulling indicator data (links included):

1. 1. 1. 1. Reportable & Infectious Diseases (Links to an external site.) (e.g., HIV/AIDS, STDs, TB)
         2. Chronic Diseases (Links to an external site.) (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke)
         3. Maternal and Child Health (Links to an external site.) (e.g., deaths among children, infant deaths, maternal deaths)
         4. Injury & Violence (Links to an external site.) (e.g., (Links to an external site.)homicide, suicide, violent crimes)
         5. Social & Behavioral Health (Links to an external site.) (e.g., arrests, eating disorders, substance abuse)

• • Step 2: Data presentation:
    • Summarize your findings in table or graph format for all data gathered in each the five categories. Choose either table or graph format. However, make sure data is in a comparable format and units on tables or graphs are clearly and accurately labeled.
    • Tables or graphs must be concise and clearly demonstrate the difference between the county and state data (see examples below).
  • Example – if you are building a table, make sure to include a final column that includes the difference between the county and the state data for each indicator in each category. You might even consider using green to indicate positive performances for the county and red to indicate poor performances for the county! If you are graphing, side-by-side bar graphs will clearly show the difference by the height of the bars. However, be careful that your Y axis scale is not so wide that bars/data at the low end of the scale are not visible In this case, re-graph this data with a smaller Y axis scale.
  • Final data presentation must be in Word format. Tables can easily be created in Word. If you are choosing to graph your data, create the graph in excel and import to Word for submission.
  • Tables or graphs must include citation to indicate the source of your data on the reference list.
• I highly recommend reviewing the grading rubric prior to submission: Grading Rubric Health Assessment 1st Milestone.
• Be creative! Here is one example of how a table for this assignment might take shape for one of the five categories:

TABLE FORMAT EXAMPLE:

• 2nd Milestone (Essay): Two steps – Data Summary and County Programs:

• Essay Step 1: Based on the data presented in your tables or graphs, what issues do you or your county officials note as significant/important outliers when compared to the state data (either positive or negative)? Summarize all significantly positive and negative county indicators in narrative format using ONLY the difference data (i.e. how much higher or lower the county is to state) to demonstrate their significance. BE CONCISE – DO NOT repeat all the individual data points in your essay.
• Essay Step 2: For all NEGATIVE county performances identified (i.e. areas where the county is performing significantly worse that state), research and present the programs that have been initiated in your county to address these significant health issues. Information presented must be research-based and sources listed on the reference list – DO NOT include opinion-based statements in this part of the essay. Describe programs IN DETAIL in 3rd person using proper APA in-text citation to indicate the source of your information on the reference list.

• Your written essay (i.e. Step 1 and Step 2 above – not including tables or graphs from the 1st Milestone) must be at least FIVE full pages in length in Word format. You will want to be complete and concise (i.e. quality not quantity!). Your grade will be based on how thoroughly and creatively you completed each step of the assignment.
• Your essay MUST BE in proper APA format (i.e. title page, running head, body format, reference list, in-text citation, etc.). APA Reference Style Guidelines and an APA Sample Paper are provided in the course Table of Contents – Important Course Information and many tutorials are available online to show you how to set an APA running head, etc. Note: an abstract page is NOT needed for this assignment.

Project Format Notes:

• Although you will be submitting the essay in milestones, the final submission should include both Milestone submissions as ONE cohesive APA formatted document. Data presentation should be submitted as an Appendix after the reference list.