Group Assignment: (due by 1700 on November 8)

Individual portion: If you are NOT a facilitator for this assignment, you will complete the exercise individually before sharing it with your group. After you have completed your individual assignment, share it by posting it in the group discussion area designated for your group on the discussion board. All individual portions of the assignment must be posted by three days prior to the due date for the group assignment. Your unit 5 group summary assignment is due by 1700 on 11/8/06. This means you will need to have your individual responses posted on the discussion board by 1200 on 11/05/06.

IMPORTANT: Individual work posted after the individual response deadline will not be incorporated into the group assignment summary, therefore, the individual student will receive a zero for that group assignment.  At the discretion of the faculty, individual work posted after the individual response due date but before the group summary assignment due date may be considered for partial credit not to exceed half of the assignment points.

Facilitator portion: Your group facilitator for this assignment will be responsible for summarizing your groups' individual contributions and posting a summary on the discussion board in the area designated for your group. The facilitator is not required to post an individual response, although it is encouraged in order to assure thoughtful and participatory interaction with the group.The facilitator may pose questions for clarification to individual members, so it is very important that all group members remain active participants in your group's section on the discussion board until the group summary is completed and posted. The group summary is what will be graded.  Please indicate group contributors and non-contributors on your submitted group summary work.

EXERCISE #1:

As a group and looking at last unit's assignment, select one group member's topic to address in this exercise. 

1. Considering the topic your group selected and using the dimensions model of health, what are some of the driving and restraining forces for improving this problem? Identify driving and restraining forces for each dimension and identify the level of the forces as either local, county, state, or federal.

2. Considering the topic you selected, what are four major considerations in planning change?

3. What 3 approaches could you use to facilitate change? Provide an example of each. Compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

4. What are the 3 stages in implementing change? How might you facilitate movement through each of these stages based on the topic your group selected?

5. As a group, suggest a health policy change that potentially could improve this problem.

EXERCISE 2:

Using your assigned readings, especially Barriers to Condom Use and Needle Cleaning Among Impoverished Minority Female Injection Drug Users and Partners of Injection Drug Users and the hypothetical information below, answer the following questions.

Hypothetical Information:

You are a public health professional, working at a county health department. You have collected the data in the article referenced above. The homeless shelter that you work with is founded on Christian principles, thus the only sex education that is allowed is based on a belief in "abstinence only." Your health department, like the homeless shelter, is located within the same conservative county.

Due to the conservative beliefs of the county and of the homeless shelter, your health department has been unable to get funding for "free" condoms. Similarly, your suggestion for a program to supply clean needles was met with the following reaction, "We don't support drug addicts."

Now, the following population based problems are increasing in your county: homeless women, Latino women afraid of seeking help because of illegal immigration status, prostitution as a means of financial support, women who are  HIV+, and the use of heroin.

1. Using the Dimensions Model of Health, what factors are influencing the health and well-being of these women?

2. Using the Dimensions Model of Health as a guiding framework: what are the driving and restraining forces?

3. Using the four steps to planning change, give examples in each step of how change could be approached. Would you use more than one approach? Why or why not?

4. How could you "unfreeze" this situation?

5. Describe ways that health policy, at more than one level, could restrain or drive change.

6. How could you influence health policy formation in this situation?