Creating a News Report on Racial Disparities in Healthcare
Overview
Students research a health disparity for a particular racial or ethnic minority group and present their research in the form of a brief written news report.
Why Use This?
This assignment encourages students to explore racial disparities in healthcare in the United States. The assignment requires them to conduct health disparity research on a government database, analyze their findings, and present their research succinctly in written form—all essential skills that students can use in healthcare or other professional fields.
How Does It Work?
Students are asked to write a script for a news report:
Example of assignment instructions: the “Purpose” and “Instructions” sections
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to promote exploration of the concept of racial disparities in healthcare in the United States.
Instructions
You will present a single point of data regarding a health disparity for a particular racial/ethnic minority group. Your presentation will be in the form of a news report script similar to the example below. In your script, you will incorporate information from your analysis of:
any disease that is described in the assigned database, and
any of the four identified racial/ethnic minority groups: Black/African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian American, or Hispanic/Latino.
Example Script
African American Women in the U.S. Die at a Higher Rate from Breast Cancer Than White Women
A recent study by the National Cancer Institute, or NCI, analyzed cancer incidence, treatment, and rate of success for various groups. One aspect of the study considered the rate of death caused by breast cancer, and the researchers compared African American women to white women. The study evaluated breast cancer patients between the years 2009 and 2013. The researchers found that the rate of death for non-Hispanic white women was 21 people per 100,000. In contrast to white women, Black women had a death rate of 29.6 per 100,000 people, or 40% higher than that expected for white women. The research team plans to investigate some of the underlying factors that lead to this large disparity.
In the assignment instructions, students are provided with a professional resource to explore and the requirements for their written script:
Example of assignment instructions: the “Research Resource” and “Required Elements” sections
Research Resource
Your resource for this assignment is the Office of Minority Health (OMH), an office in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Follow these steps to identify the racial/ethnic group that you choose to study and the health concern that your study will focus on.
Go to the Office of Minority Health websiteLinks to an external site.
Select the tab on the top menu bar for “Policy and Data.”
Find the menu bar on the left. Select “Minority Population Profiles.”
Select any one of the four minority groups by opening one of the tabs.
Use the menu on the left to select any one of the indicated health concerns.
Elements for Your Written Script
Type your name at the top of the document.
Type the date under your name.
Type your script in 12-point font, single-spaced.
Add a fitting title at the top of your script.
Paste a copy of the data that you used for your script.
Provide the web address(es) for the data page(s) you used.
Keep In Mind
Because government websites often change, you may need to update any links in the assignment instructions before the course opens.