Research Methods

Assignment 1: Topic and literature review

This will be the first of three papers that you construct for this class. The assignment is a 3-5-page paper written over a topic that you will pursue for the rest of the semester in subsequent assignments. This topic is your choice, but something related to criminal justice, criminology, and/or deviance. Follow these steps to complete your assignment.

1 Choose a topic that you are interested in and of which has a sufficient amount of  has academic research published on it. Avoid current event issues (ongoing trials, murder sprees, etc.) as these may not have sufficient amounts of research on the subjects published in peer-reviewed journals.

2 Go to the RU library’s website and use the following three search engines to find your articles: Criminal Justice Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, or Proquest. Write down your keywords for your search that results in the most articles. Download at least 10 of those articles.

3 Build a reference page using APA citation style (a .pdf of APA lite is in your course documents). As you read through your articles, write a brief summary/annotation (what, who, how, and why of each article) after each reference in the bibliography. This is called an annotated bibliography. It will inform the remainder of your assignments for the rest of the semester concerning your chosen topic.

4 Construct (assignment 1) 3-5 pages about your topic. In short, this is the what, who, why, and how of your topic. This first paper explores what the topic is, who has researched the topic, how they went about researching the topic and why it is an important topic to criminal justice. This is called a literature review.

Complete steps one through three, first. Use the annotated bibliography to then write a literature review step four, last. 

Papers should be 12-point font, double-spaced, with one inch margins. Literature reviews should be structured like essays, complete with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Put together a title page with a working title—this will change and evolve but offers an opportunity be creative. Every paper needs a reference section to cite who and where you found your information. 

There is an old proverb that says, “if you are going to eat an elephant, you have to do it one bite at a time.” This is certainly true for research. Take your time, pick a topic that you are passionate about, then sit down and spend the time. We will work through it. Eat that elephant.

CHALLENGES IN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Challenges in the Business Environment

Overview

Changing, or even stating, a company’s values can be a long and arduous process, but it often pales in comparison to the effort it takes to make sure they are honored, implemented and projected. In this assignment, you evaluate how well your chosen company from the first assignment has done in “walking the talk” and responding to a social issue.

Preparation

Review your chosen company’s mission and values statements as well as other sources that provide insight into the company’s values with regard to social responsibility. Pick two of their primary values and research how the company manifests those values. Simple examples might be the commitment to workplace diversity or ecological sustainability. 

Instructions

Create a 3–5-minute (approximately 6–8 slides) PowerPoint presentation that evaluates how well the company embodies its issue-related values. Your presentation should contain detailed speaker’s notes that flesh out and support main points, ideas, or conclusions and have supporting citations.

1. Summarize your chosen company’s Supplier Responsibility information.
2. In your own words, explain how each aspect of your Supplier Code of Conduct is committed to ethical business practices and social responsibility.
3. Discuss your company’s stance on each of the following areas:
   • Empowering Workers.
   • Labor and Human Rights.
   • Health and Safety.
   • The Environment.
   • Accountability.
4. Identify the key ways that your company’s Code of Conduct has changed since last year.
5. Examine the manner in which your company’s Supplier Code of Conduct helps the organization operate as a socially responsible organization.
6. In this week’s discussion, you consider assembling a team to write a supplier code of conduct. Recommend the stakeholders roles (4–5) needed on the team and how each supports the project.

Integrate at least three supporting resources from the Strayer University Library or other reputable sources.

This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards. For assistance and information, please refer to the Strayer Writing Standards link in the left-hand menu of your course. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.

The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is:

• Create a presentation about the key areas, changes, and progress in a company’s supplier responsibilities and code of conduct.

         reply to this discussion 

 An important part of the policy making process, as discussed last week, is review of the policy being presented.  Policy review consists of those supporting the policy bringing it to the attention of policy makers and explaining the need for this policy.  Registered nurses (RN) and advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) have a unique role in policy review due to their expertise in the field and education.  One way that RNs and APRNs can get involved in policy review is by joining a professional nurse association.  The American Nurse Association (ANA) is known for their policy advocacy in the healthcare workplace and integrity of the nursing role (Catallo et al., 2014).  A nurse may join this organization with the intent of being involved in the policy making process and policy review.  It may be difficult for a nurse to get involved with a professional organization on top of an already full work schedule and possible work burnout (University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, 2020).

            Another way that RNs and APRNs can be involved in policy review is to be involved in different policy review committees at their workplace.  A quality assurance committee is utilized in hospitals to ensure that the policies put into place give the best patient care.  With high turnover rates and short staffing, it can be limited with committees because there may not always be the same staff members to keep up with their committee commitments (Department of Health and Human Services, 2003).

In responding to your classmates, compare and contrast their memo with your own. What additional questions or issues would you include that they did not? Based on the analysis in their memo, would you recommend initiating an intervention regarding childhood immunizations?

Post # 1

Donna Coleman 

Memo: Regarding Childhood Immunizations

Childhood immunizations are a popular public health topic in society as it relates to disease prevention and health promotion. Promoting childhood vaccinations could increase the vaccination rates among children and prevent disease outbreaks (Riddell, 2012). Data shows that vaccination rates among children in the United States are adequate with over 90% of kindergarten students vaccinated with the recommended vaccines. While this looks promising, some children are not vaccinated due to religious reasons and other parental preferences (Riddell, 2012). With this information, healthcare providers and organizations can help to improve vaccination rates by making childhood immunizations available and affordable to families.

To promote health and reduce healthcare costs the organization could develop ways to ensure that the target population receives the recommended immunizations. Most childhood vaccines are recommended to prevent and control diseases. Some childhood diseases like pertussis and measles require preventative vaccines because there are no other alternate recommendations for prevention from these diseases (Riddell, 2012).

To effectively promote childhood immunizations under the health effectiveness analysis program (HEAP), my organization would make an economic evaluation using the cost-benefit analysis. This analysis allows the organization to compare costs and benefits to make decisions about projects, public goods, and services. In other words, the organization will use the cost-benefit analysis to determine if the benefits from childhood immunizations are worth the costs (Henderson, 2018). In this case, there are little or no alternatives to childhood immunizations as a preventive measure. Therefore, a non-profit organization could perform this analysis to benefit public health instead of making a profit. Discounts or free vaccines could be provided to those in need. Some concerns and questions that might arise in the cost-benefit analysis, such as the availability of staff to accommodate immunization distribution schedules; will the organization provide the quantity to cover the servicing areas? will all children have a fair opportunity to access the immunizations? how would the organization apply discounts and who would subsidize the funds to cover the loss? These are valid concerns that could arise during the economic evaluation before a decision can be made about the approach with this intervention.

The impact that this intervention could have on consumer behavior and demand is more children would get vaccinated due to the affordability and availability of this valuable product. Consumers will utilize the services consistently because of accessibility. They are more likely to choose the organization that has the product available at a price that they can afford or at no cost.  The organization would ensure that they have enough vaccines to serve all communities and that they negotiate with insurance carriers to provide coverage for the vaccines. According to Riddell (2012), consumers are more likely to choose between obtaining the goods and services to improve their quality of health especially when there are no alternatives, and the costs are minimal. This health intervention could improve health outcomes and benefit the organization. For-profit organizations can apply other analysis methods to determine how they could make a profit as well as meet the needs of the consumer, and nonprofit organizations could use the cost-benefit analysis to promote public health and remain competitive. 

References

Henderson, J. (2018). Health Economics and Policy (7th ed.). Cengage Learning. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/

Riddell, M. R. (2012,). Wayback Machine. Web.archive.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20160429040952/http://www.marrellgroup.com/TMG%20Commentary.The%20Latest%20on%20Consumer%20Behavior%20and%20Public%20Reporting.032012.pd

Post # 2

Re: Health Effectiveness Analysis Program (HEAP) – Childhood Immunizations

To Whom it May Concern:

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) requires that health benefits and costs are measured in monetary terms. A CBA is comprehensive and measuring benefits can be complex. CBA benefits can be measured in physical and cognitive health, productivity, treatment costs and life. However, there are some questions that arise when making economic evaluations on childhood immunizations.

1. How does this benefit children in the present and future?

According to Bärnighausen et al., (2011) vaccines protect children’s health and allows them to achieve full cognitive potential. Children that are physically and cognitively healthy can attend school, miss school less due to illness and finish college. There is an outcome related productivity gain because vaccinated children can grow up to be physically healthy and well-educated that permits to work and be productive members of society. For instance, Haemophilus Influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine protects against a bacterial form of meningitis that can cause blindness, mental retardation, epilepsy, paralysis and deafness. There is a relation between cognitive ability and educational achievements linked to labor productivity and income. Recent studies show that 15 to 35% of Hib meningitis survivors have a permanent disability that can reduce cognition (Bärnighausen et al., 2011).

2. How does this affect the community?

Each state has its own vaccine requirements to enroll children in school. However, there are vaccine exemptions that allow children to enroll in school without meeting the mandatory vaccine requirements. The vaccine exemptions are medical, philosophical or religious beliefs (NVIC, n.d.). Parents with immunosuppressed children may be advised by the pediatrician to opt out of vaccinations if the risks outweigh the benefits. Therefore, there are children attending school without being protected from certain diseases. However, children that are vaccinated can protect other unvaccinated children through herd effects. Vaccinated children cannot contract the disease and transmit it to other children that are not vaccinated. The herd effect can help reduce the transmission of disease in the community (Bärnighausen et al., 2011).

3. What are the costs associated with disease?

Cost associated with the disease can be direct or indirect. Direct costs include outbreak control, outpatient and inpatient visits for treatment of disease. Indirect costs include productivity losses from premature mortality (CDC, 2014) According to the CDC (2015) before the introduction of the Hib vaccine about 20,000 children under the age of 5 contracted the Hib disease yearly and about 3% – 6% children died. After the introduction of the Hib vaccine, Hib disease dropped by 99%. The costs associated with disease can have a financial burden on society. In 2013, the cost per hospitalization from Sequelae among meningitis cases was $4, 111 for 2 days and 38,270 for 7 days that could have been prevented with the Hib vaccine (CDC, 2014).

Cost-benefit analysis can assist in measuring benefits in monetary terms and identify ways to distribute resources to maximize profit. This intervention can impact demand and consumer behavior. Parents that want to protect their children from Hib will vaccinate their children causing a higher demand for vaccines and medical personnel to administer them. The demand for vaccines can result in competition in the market. Health care providers can choose to purchase from private or public sector. However, the ultimately decision is determined by the patient’s insurance and what brand of vaccine it covers.

Please let me know your thoughts on this proposal.

Best Regards,

Trina Cox

References

Bärnighausen, T., Bloom, D., Canning, D., Friedman, A., Levine, O. S., O’Brien, J. Privor-Dumm, L. (2011). Rethinking the Benefits and Costs of Childhood Vaccination: The Example of the Haemophilus Influenzae Type B Vaccine. Vaccine, 29, 2731-2380. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/immunization/diseases/hib/Macroeconomic_evaluation_Hib_vaccines.pdf

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2014). Decision Analysis Model. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/pubs/methods/index.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2015). VFC Publications: Supplement. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/pubs/methods/index.html

National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). (n.d.). State Law & Vaccine Requirements. Retrieved from https://www.nvic.org/vaccine-laws/state-vaccine-requirements.aspx