health psychology

Health Infographic Project Summer 2020

A large part of health psychology is changing health behaviors in order to improve the general health of individuals, thus increasing the health of our society at-large. One way to do this is through educational appeals. A popular and very modern way to provide education to a large group of individuals is through the use of infographics; either paper or digital ones. For this project you are going to create an infographic to change some health-related behavior.

You are going to complete the project in a series of steps. Step 1 is to identify which health problem, disease, or condition that you are interested in addressing. These are things like cancer, heart disease, depression, Alzheimer’s, etc In step 2, you will identify your target population. These are the people that you want to target with your infographic in an effort to address the health problem. In other words, who do you want to read your infographic? Step 3 is where you identify a health behavior that is related to the health condition. This is the thing that you want your target population to do or not do as a result of reading your infographic. Practicing or refraining from this behavior will decrease the likelihood that the reader will have the identified health problem. Step 4 is the infographic that you create to get the target population to change their health behavior.

You need to be very specific about this and do a great deal of planning before you begin to write. I recommend that you read the entire project and then outline each of the steps prior to submitting Step 1; at least outline the first three steps. You need to make sure that the health behavior identified in Step 3 is related to both the health problem identified in Step 1 and the target population identified in Step 2. For example, an endurance triathlete (Step 2 – population) exercises (Step 3 - behavior) for completely different reasons than a couch potato does which in turn has differential effects on chances for heart disease.

Here’s a brief sample:

Step 1 – Health problem: infant mortality

Step 2 - Target population: African-American teen mothers living in specific zip codes that are characteristically low-income areas (These are the people who are most at risk for an infant death)

Step 3 - Health behavior: Access Medicaid insurance in order to obtain prenatal healthcare (This is a behavioral cause of infant mortality.)

Step 4 – Infographic showing who is eligible and how to access Medicaid

Note: If you would like to email me something like the steps outlined above, I would be happy to provide feedback.

Instructions on how to complete each step can be found below.

1. Submission Instructions: Assignments will be submitted on Blackboard.

a. Make sure to click “Submit” instead of “Save” when submitting your assignments. I cannot open your paper or see what time you finished your paper until it is submitted. Saving allows you to come back to your work and finish it at a later time. Therefore, the paper is NOT sent to me at this time.

b. Make sure you get the message that your document has been successfully uploaded. If not, your paper was not sent to me. I also recommend that you take a screen shot of this screen as documentation.

2. Due Dates and Late Policy: Exercises must be turned in via Blackboard, in the “Health Infographic” link in Blackboard, no later than 11:59pm EST on the due date. You should submit your assignment early to avoid problems with Blackboard. The date/time stamp given to me by Blackboard is the day/time that I use in determining if there will be a point penalty due to lateness. Late papers are accepted with a 7.5 point penalty PER DAY. The late penalty will only be waived in the case of your own hospitalization or death in the immediate family. Permission to submit a late paper must be requested PRIOR to the due date. Documentation is required. Due dates are:

· Step #1 – Identify health problem – January 31

· Step #2 – Identify the target population – February 21

· Step #3 – Identify the health behavior – March 20

· Step #4 – Creation of the Infographic – April 10

3. Page Length: Assignments will generally be two pages in length. The assignment is not graded based on the length of the paper, but rather on the degree to which the requested content is thoroughly covered in your paper. Therefore, using page cheats like large margins are not necessary. Double-space the paper in a 12-point Times New Roman font using 1 inch margins on all sides

4. Missed Assignments: Each part of the assignment builds upon the previous assignment. For example, you cannot identify a target population without first identifying a health problem. Because of this I will allow you to turn in late assignments even if technically the assignment would be worth 0 points due to the late penalty. Papers submitted 10 days after the due date will receive a minimum grade of 25 points. You must submit all previous assignments before submitting the current assignment. Failure to submit these assignments will result in the current assignment receiving a grade of 25 points. If you originally skipped assignments 1 and 2, but would like to submit assignment 3, you must first complete assignments 1 and 2. You will receive at least 25 points for assignment 1 and 2 even if you submit them at the same time as assignment 3. If you do not submit assignments 1 and 2, assignment 3 will only be worth 25 points.

5. VERY IMPORTANT!! READ THIS SECTION!!

Citations and Plagiarism: You must obtain information to support your paper from sources like your textbook or scholarly websites. When you do this, there are several very important things to pay attention to:

A. APA Citation: You MUST correctly document information taken from other sources using the appropriate APA formatting for in-text citations and your reference listing at the end of your paper. I highly recommend that you review the APA Citation Primer found in the “Health Infographic” link in Blackboard. There is also an excellent online source available at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/. There are two particular sections that are most relevant; “In-Text Citations: The Basics” and “Reference List: Basic Rules.” You may NOT use another style such as MLA for citing sources. There are penalties for failure to cite sources and/or using APA formatting incorrectly.

Citations are required for both paraphrased information (information taken from a source but re-written in your own words) and direct quotes (information copied word-for-word from another source).

B. Direct Quotes: A well-written paper does not include a lot of direct quotes. You should gather information from other sources, but you should re-write this information in your own words. Papers containing more than one sentence that is a direct quote will receive a grade of 0. This means that your entire paper/assignment (Step 1 for example) may not have more than one sentence that is copied from a source. Direct quotes are counted by sentence and/or parts of a sentence, and not the number of times the quotation mark (“ ”) appears. As a general rule of thumb, you have a direct quote any time you copy three or more words. See the guidelines provided in the APA Citation Primer located in Blackboard for information on how and when to use direct quotes.

When you use direct quotes you MUST use quotation marks to indicate that you did not write this information. Information that is copied word-for-word from another source that does not include both a citation and quotation marks is plagiarism, and will be treated as such.

C. Plagiarism: When taking information from another source, you must be careful to avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism includes both intentional and inadvertent plagiarism. Intentional plagiarism is defined as “deliberate use of another author’s research, ideas, or language without acknowledging the source through footnotes, quotations, or reference.” Inadvertent plagiarism is defined as “the improper, but accidental, use of another’s ideas, words, or data without identifying the source. Inadvertent plagiarism typically occurs when the student fails to distinguish between direct quotes and general observations when doing research.” (Definitions were taken from Purdue University’s definition of plagiarism. More information regarding what constitutes plagiarism can be found at: http://webs.purduecal.edu/integrity/dishonesty/definitions-plagiarism/.)

Students often think that direct quotes only need a citation; i.e., something like Jones, 2017. Without quotation marks, the information that was copied word-for-word is plagiarism. This is because the missing quotation marks indicate that you wrote this information when in fact you did not. This is plagiarism. It is inadvertent plagiarism, but it is plagiarism.

All papers are checked for plagiarism through SafeAssign. SafeAssign checks your paper with other papers submitted through SafeAssign and with internet sources. It returns a percentage match with these other sources. If you are concerned about inadvertently plagiarizing from another source, you may submit a draft version so that you can check your SafeAssign score prior to submitting your final version. Several hours (or even a day or two) after you have submitted your paper, go into “My Grades” and view your SafeAssign report. You will submit both the draft version and the final version in the same link on Blackboard. Only the last version of your paper is graded. Final versions are not checked against the draft version.

Plagiarized papers will at least receive a grade of 0 and will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity. Depending of the severity of the incident, an F for the class and a notation of academic dishonesty on your transcript will be considered.

6. Original Work: Students are reminded that ODU’s Honor Code requires these exercises must be original work. You should not copy text for these assignments from previous papers that you have written (for my class or other classes) or from other’s student’s papers or from Internet sources. Additionally, ODU’s Honor Code prohibits you from sharing your assignment or any part of your assignment with other students in this class or other students taking this class in the future. Students violating this policy will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity.

7. Accepted Electronic Formats: Exercises should be submitted by attaching your document (do not use the comment box). Documents should be a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file. I cannot open .wps or .odt files, and thus I cannot grade a .wps, .pages, or .odt file. If you use a Mac, make sure you are using a file format that can be read by PCs. Google documents are also not allowed because of the inability to use the SafeAssign function with this method. Additionally, you should be careful to submit the correct file (no temporary files, don’t submit my file, etc). A grade of 0 will be received for any text that I cannot read due to problems with opening the file.

8. If you are retaking this class, you must read this.

Resubmission of Previous Work: According to ODU policy, you may not submit a previous work for these assignments. That means that you may not submit the same paper that you have previously submitted to me for this assignment. Violation of this is considered to be academic dishonesty and will be treated as such. My recommended sanction for this violation is an F for the course. If you have taken this class with me you MUST contact me to receive instructions on how to complete this assignment. You should contact me within the first two weeks of class so that we have ample time to work out which are the appropriate assignments for you.

9. Grading: Each assignment is graded based on the completeness of each answer, the clarity with which the information is described, and the grammar and organization of the assignment. All questions and parts of questions must be fully answered to receive full credit. Full credit will not be given for answers that are only briefly described. Be sure to use the provided rubric to be sure that you have covered ALL of the required content. Assignments are worth a maximum of 75 points each for a total of 300 points.

10. Returned Papers: Because of the thoroughness with which each paper is graded, it takes me quite a while to return papers. Do not expect papers to be graded before a minimum of one week after the due date. In most cases all papers will be graded in approximately two weeks.