Nutrition/Dietary

Nutrition/Dietary
For the final project of this course, you create a written plan for designing and evaluating a healthy eating or nutrition intervention for your state.

Required Formatting and Length:

Your final project should be 12-19 pages in length (single-spaced, one-inch margins, Times New Roman font size 12) using APA style. The title page and bibliography (required) are not included in the page count. The use of graphs or charts to explain relationships, describe the condition, or summarize the literature is great but should be used in moderation. Supporting tables and figures should follow the paper’s written text and be properly referenced as to their source.

Appropriate References:

There is a ten–reference minimum for this project. Use peer-reviewed research articles, review articles, or web sites/reports for reputable county, state, national, or international public health entities. Examples of these web sites include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization, Environmental Protection Agency, and your state’s department of health’s website. If you are unsure if a web site would be an acceptable reference, request clarification from your instructor. Format all references in the bibliography and in-text citations according to the American Psychological Association (APA) standard.

Additional Guidance:

Please spell- and grammar-check your final project prior to submission. Double-check that you have satisfied all of the content and formatting/length requirements described above. Remember, there are additional resources available through the Free Writing Resources link in your toolbar and you can access Excelsior’s Online Writing Lab at http://owl.excelsior.edu/.

Final Project Assignments (50%):

Needs assessment: 15%
Program and Evaluation Plan 35%
Mission statement and work plan for evidence-based intervention
Logic model, Gantt chart, and budget
Evaluation plan and ethical considerations
In addition to the major content areas above, prepare a title page (include a descriptive title, your name, and the date) and bibliography.

Needs Assessment (3-5 pages): The needs assessment is a critical component of the final project. The selection of your intervention will be based on your target population. Using publically-available data, describe the population demographics of your state; identify and describe a target population for the nutrition program; explain your rationale for why this population needs this program and demonstrate your reasoning with numbers. Include a description of relevant social and environmental factors as well as the health behaviors and relevant disease indicators. Be sure to clearly characterize your target population by including information on the age range, race/ethnicity, geographic location, socioeconomic status, or health status of this population. For example, your target population could be adults, school children, low-income adults, African-American families with children under 12, adults with Type-2 diabetes, or people who live in a particular area of the state.
Be sure to:

Describe the population demographics of your state
Identify and describe a target population for the nutrition program
Explain your rationale for why this population needs this program and demonstrate your reasoning with numbers
Mission statement and work plan for evidence-based intervention (3-5 pages): Select an evidence-based intervention for the healthy eating/nutrition program you are developing for your state. Be sure that the intervention is appropriate for the target population you identified in your needs assessment. You can be a little creative; it is fine to make adaptations, add components, or even combine more than one intervention. However, be careful not to target too many factors – a focused intervention will be more manageable for the rest of the final project. Name and describe you intervention, explain the rationale behind your selection(s), and justify any adaptations you make. A mission statement and work plan communicate your goals and your plan for achieving them. Write a mission statement for your program. Depending on your target population, your mission statement might focus on something like diabetes or maintaining a healthy weight. The work plan is the heart of your final project. Write 2-3 goals, 6-9 objectives, and the associated activities (within the activities identify likely barriers and ways to overcome them).
Be sure to:

Select an evidence-based nutrition program appropriate for your target population
Create a mission statement
Create a work plan with 2-3 goals, 6-9 objectives, and activities
Logic model, Gantt chart, and budget (4-5 pages):
Logic model: Develop a one-page, visual logic model. Use the mission statement, goals, objectives, and activities that you developed the previous assignment to populate your logic model. The activities from last week will be your activities in the logical model. Your process objectives from last week will probably be your short-term activities in the logic model. Your action and outcome objectives and maybe your goals from last week will be your mid or long-term objectives. Your goals and program mission statement might be your logic model goals.

Because you’ve already developed the content, spend some extra time on the appearance of your logic model to ensure it clearly conveys your thoughts.I recommend using AutoShapes in PowerPoint (landscape layout). Excel will be helpful to automatically total your one-year program budget.

Gantt chart: Develop a one-page Gantt chart. List all of your activities for your project and indicate during what time period you would complete them. If you are proposing a 1-2 year project, use months in your Gantt chart. If you are proposing a three-year project or longer, use months or quarters in your Gantt chart. (If your program requires staff, assume you are able to hire them during the first two-weeks of your project.)

Budget: Develop a line-item and budget justification for the first year of your project. Use the budget categories provided in the Module Notes. Your line item budget should be less than one page and the budget justification should be no more than two pages. The budget justification should explain the costs you are requesting and how the budget items relate to your program activities. (If your program requires staff, assume you are able to hire them immediately, so budget based on their full annual salary. Assume that your organization’s fringe benefits are 30% and indirect costs are 25%.)

Be sure to include:

A logic model
A Gantt chart depicting when your activities will occur
A 12-month budget for your project
Evaluation plan and ethical considerations (2-4 pages): Develop an evaluation plan for your project. Describe the types of evaluation included, the evaluation design, and who will conduct the evaluation. Describe potential threats to internal and external validity and how your design or other factors mitigate them. Describe a robust informed consent process and any other steps you will take to ensure your evaluation plan is ethical and culturally competent.
Be sure to include:

An evaluation plan to demonstrate the effectiveness of your intervention
Any ethical considerations related to your evaluation plan or your intervention including a mitigation plan
Required Formatting and Length:

Your final project should be 12-19 pages in length (single-spaced, one-inch margins, Times New Roman font size 12) using APA style. The title page and bibliography (required) are not included in the page count. The use of graphs or charts to explain relationships, describe the condition, or summarize the literature is great but should be used in moderation. Supporting tables and figures should follow the paper’s written text and be properly referenced as to their source.

Appropriate References:

There is a ten–reference minimum for this project. Use peer-reviewed research articles, review articles, or web sites/reports for reputable county, state, national, or international public health entities. Examples of these web sites include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization, Environmental Protection Agency, and your state’s department of health’s website. If you are unsure if a web site would be an acceptable reference, request clarification from your instructor. Format all references in the bibliography and in-text citations according to the American Psychological Association (APA) standard.

Additional Guidance:

Please spell- and grammar-check your final project prior to submission. Double-check that you have satisfied all of the content and formatting/length requirements described above. Remember, there are additional resources available through the Free Writing Resources link in your toolbar and you can access Excelsior’s Online Writing Lab at http://owl.excelsior.edu/.