Before beginning political advocacy, one must identify a problem that needs to be addressed through health care policy. Sometimes, political advocacy is needed when established health care policies are not adequate for solving a problem, or when the legislation creates new problems. This assignment is the first in a three-part project.

The purpose of this three-part project is to guide you through the process of selecting a problem, identifying evidence-based solutions, and designing a political advocacy plan to address the problem with those solutions.

In this first assignment, you will select a consumer challenge related to equity, access, affordability, and/or social justice in health care, and you will analyze how existing policies address this challenge. Completion of this assignment will demonstrate your achievement of the following course outcome:

       6. analyze the impact of sociocultural, economic, and environmental influences on health care policies to understand consumer challenges related to equity, access, affordability, and social justice in health care

Assignment Guidelines

1. Identify a nursing or health care issue that relates to a current health policy or political issue pertaining to equity, access, affordability, and/or social justice in health care.
2. In a 3–4-page paper, complete the following:
   1. Identify the problem, noting its relationship to equity, access, affordability, and/or social justice in health care.
   2. Describe the population most affected by this problem, noting whether this is a vulnerable population.
   3. Describe health care and health disparities that may be related to this problem and population.
   4. Summarize legislation and/or political activities that relate to the identified problem.
   5. Analyze the effect that this legislation has had on the consumer challenge.
   6. Uses APA style for your citations and references.

In the first part of this project, you identified a consumer challenge related to equity, access, affordability, and/or social justice in health care and analyzed the impact of legislation on the problem. Now, you will be searching the literature to identify potential solutions and ways of recommending them.

Searching for evidence is a critical step in evidence-based practice. You must perform this step to be prepared to offer evidence-based solutions. In this assignment, you will conduct a literature review to find evidence-based approaches to address your identified issue.

Completion of this assignment will demonstrate your achievement of the following course outcomes:

       4. analyze the impact of sociocultural, economic, and environmental influences on health care policies to understand consumer challenges related to equity, access, affordability, and social justice in health care

       5. evaluate the political advocacy process to identify opportunities for nursing professional involvement

Assignment Guidelines

1. Identify at least five sources pertinent to the consumer challenge you identified in the first part of this project. At least three of the sources must be articles from professional peer-reviewed publications.
2. In a 5–6-page paper, complete the following:
   1. Synthesize your findings from the literature.
   2. Based on your findings, identify evidence-based solutions to the problem.
   3. Describe methods of advocacy that you could use to present your recommendations.
   4. Use APA style for your citations and references.

You have made it to the final part of the social justice project. In this part of the project, you will present a plan to politically advocate on behalf of the population plagued with the health care problem you identified in part 1 of this project. You will be taking this opportunity to propose the evidence-based solutions that you identified in part two of the project.

Of the many possible ways to advocate, you will choose those strategies that you feel are most appropriate and that will be most effective. This is the most exciting part—very similar to developing a plan of care once you have assessed your patient and decided on which evidence-based interventions to deliver!

Completion of this assignment will demonstrate your achievement of the following course outcomes:

       5. evaluate the political advocacy process to identify opportunities for nursing professional involvement

       6. delineate strategies that nurses can use to engage in advocacy for health care policy to support equity, access, affordability, and social justice for consumers and in support of the nursing profession

Assignment Guidelines

Develop a PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes that includes the following:

1. summary of the problem
   1. identification of the consumer challenge and its relationship to equity, access, affordability,and/or social justice in health care
   2. identification of the population most affected by this problem, and whether it is a vulnerable population
   3. identification of any healthcare or health disparities related to the problem or population
   4. summary of legislation and/or political activities that relate to the identified problem
   5. analysis of impact of legislation
2. summary of the evidence-based recommendations
   1. list of evidence-based solutions with in-text citations of supporting sources
   2. summary of political advocacy strategies that could be used to advocate for the implementation of the evidence-based solutions
3. plan for political advocacy
   1. identification of the audience you plan to address regarding this challenge. Will you speak out to the workplace or workforce, legislative representatives, professional organizations, the community, or a combination of these entities? Give your rationale for choosing this audience.
   2. identification and description of the strategies you will use to communicate your recommendations. Examples include writing letters, using the media, and building coalitions. This is where you get to be creative!
   3. description of what you learned on this project and how you can apply the lessons in your work
   4. reference list in APA formatting
   5. Upload your PowerPoint presentation to the specified discussion forum

Part 4

Letter to the Legislator