Contributions To Public Health.
Description
Significant Contributions to Public Health – Part I
For your final project, you will be researching an individual and their contribution to community and
public health. Because of the size of this project, you will be doing the first part of this project in
Week 3 then adding the final portion in Week 5. You have the option of writing a paper or putting
together a presentation. Details are below the outline. Overall, you will be researching an historical
figure in the public health world, their contribution to public health, and how their work helped shape
the public health system. Furthermore, you will be analyzing how their contribution from the past
continues to contribute to today’s public health system and how it might guide future work within the
industry.
Follow this outline to help formulate your paper or presentation:
ACTION: Select one of the historical figures and their associated public health topic
- Margaret Higgins Sanger/Reproductive health
- Rachel Carson/Environmental health
- Franklin D. Roosevelt/Health care administration
- John Snow/Communicable and infectious disease
- Luther T. Terry/Smoking
- W. E. B. DuBois/Social determinants of health
- Larry Kramer/Health activism
- An individual of your own choice: YOU MUST OBTAIN INSTRUCTOR APPROVAL IN
- ADVANCE
- ACTION: Research the individual’s background
- GRADED ELEMENT: Describe your selected person’s biographical background (i.e.experience).
o HELP: This can include resume elements such as birthdate, location, education, and
brief statement of their contribution to public health. (Reminder: biographical
information can be easily plagiarized. Please do not copy from your biographical
websites. Paraphrase and/or quote and cite everything according to APA.)
ACTION: Research the barriers and issue of the time
- GRADED ELEMENT: Analyze the climate of the time period in terms of political,
socioeconomic, environmental and technological context in which this person worked
o HELP: Think about whether this person was up against resistance or was their work
welcomed. [For example, if you were writing on Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of
slavery, you would note that slavery was prevalent and accepted at the time and the
change was welcomed by some and rejected by others]
- GRADED ELEMENT: Examine the personal beliefs of your person that prompted this work.
o HELP: You are basically addressing the question: “Why did this person get involved
with the issue at the time?” [In continuing the Lincoln example above, you would note
that black people were considered property, not people; yet Lincoln believed
everyone had equal rights regardless of skin color].
