Reference no: EM132275546

Topic: Understanding and/or addressing mental health issues in populations following natural disasters;

Task:

You are a researcher in the School of Public Health at The University of Queensland. A Philanthropic organisation is willing to donate a large sum of money for research studies addressing key public health issues. Your research team has been asked to first submit a literature review, critiquing the evidence to date, highlighting a research gap and proposing a research question to address.

When constructing your response, you should consider the following elements:

Getting started:

1. Choose a topic / public health issue

Choose a public health topic of interest to you or choose from one of the following suggestions:

• Understanding and/or addressing otitis media in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people;
• Understanding and/or addressing mental health issues in populations following natural disasters; or
• Understanding and/or addressing smoking in young women.

2. Conduct a literature search to identify relevant studies/articles

Develop a structured search strategy(ies) and conduct a database search in one database (e.g. PubMed, Web of Science). Refer to Learning Resources from weeks 1 and 3.

3. Identify ten (10) studies/articles to critically review

From the search(es), select 10 articles to critically review. How you choose the 10 articles will vary. You will need to read a number of the articles/abstracts you identify from the search, to select the 10 that you will summarise and critique in your literature review.

4. Read and extract data from 10 studies

Summarise the key information from the 10 studies into a summary table(s). Refer to the Learning Resources for weeks 3 and 4 and the Summary Table template document in the Assessment 1 folder. If you are including studies of different study designs, you may choose to tabulate the studies in to different tables (e.g. if column headings need to vary).

5. Conduct quality assessment of 10 studies

Using the quality assessment tools discussed in the lectures, assess the quality of the 10 studies you are reviewing. You will need to select the appropriate tool(s) for the study design. Refer to the Learning Resources for weeks 3 and 4 and the Table template documents in the Assessment 1 folder.

6. Write up literature review including critical review of 10 studies

Using the literature review template document provided in the Assessment 1 folder, write up your critical review of the literature. This will include: an introduction to the significance of the public health issue; a summary of the methods/approach used for the literature review; a critique and summary of the evidence reviewed; identification of the research gap(s); and proposal of a research question to address the gap. The research question should be:
- Public health focused;
- Focused on researching humans;
- Focused on original data collection (i.e. not a systematic review).