Each student will complete a paper, individually, on a chronic disease. Papers must cover a chronic disease (e.g., lung cancer) that is approved by the instructor. A chronic disease must be requested by emailing the course instructor via canvasby September 15^th. Chronic diseases will be assigned on a first-come, first serve basis. The following diseases cannot be selected for this assignment: diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease, stroke, depression, anxiety, alcohol use disorder, nicotine use disorder, lung cancer, and AIDS.

• Introduction: Literature Review (suggested length: 2-3 pages) - Use a minimum of 10 scholarly references, such as peer-reviewed articles, books, reports from scientific organizations such NIH, CDC, or WHO. Do not use non-scholarly references such as the Mayo Clinic or WebMD.
  • A brief overview of the disease
    • Common symptoms
    • How is it diagnosed
  • Discuss key risk and protective factors (these can be modifiable or non-modifiable risk factors).
    • If possible take into consideration a biopsychosocial perspective.
  • Discuss the impact of the disease:
    • Present descriptive epidemiology (e.g., person, place, time)
    • If any, discuss existing health disparities (e.g., SES, race/ethnicity, gender, age)
    • Other measures of disease burden such as disability-adjusted life year (DALY).
• Prevention Science: Article Review and Critique (suggested length: 2-3 pages)
  • Select two peer-reviewed article that discusses evidence-based interventions targeting the assigned chronic disease. Each article must be published in 2016 or more recently. The interventions should discuss strategies to prevent, control, and/or treat the disease (e.g., public policy, behavioral interventions, and medical treatments).
    • Include a description of the intervention.
    • Include an explanation of the results of the intervention (e.g., was the intervention effective).
    • Critique each respective intervention/study (e.g., what are its strengths and weakness).
    • If needed, please read [Azer, S. A., Ramani, S., & Peterson, R. (2012). Becoming a peer reviewer to medical education journals.Medical Teacher,34, 698-704] for suggestions on how to evaluate an article.
• Data source: Individual topic papers will be used to assess the core competency: identify key sources of data for use in epidemiologic studies (suggested length: 1 page).
  • All papers must cover one source of data/dataset for use in epidemiologic studies related to the selected chronic disease and describe the strengths and limitations of each source.
  • What is a source of data for use in epidemiologic studies? A source of data for use in epidemiologic studies is a dataset that could actually be obtained by you and statistical analyses could be performed to carry out an epidemiological study. For example, an appropriate dataset for someone doing a presentation on alcohol use disorder/alcoholism would be the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions or the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. You can find several sources of data at the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social ResearchLinks to an external site.
  • Reporting descriptive epidemiological findings from the CDC or WHO is not a source of "data." Prior to selecting a disease for your Topic Paper make sure you can find a data source in order to complete this part of the assignment. For instance, if you select a rare disease like fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva it may be very difficult or impossible to find a data source.