Assignment 1: What’s in Your County?

For this assignment, you will look at your local public health department’s (LHD) community assessment or reports on your county’s health issues. Most LHDs have web sites where they post information related to reportable diseases and outbreaks that have occurred. You may need to visit your state public health department to obtain these statistics.

An example of such a database can be found at the Arkansas Department of Health website. http://www.healthy.arkansas.gov/Pages/default.aspx. Most will also have this information for counties.

Once you find the information, for this assignment you will write a 5- to 6-page paper that describes in depth 3 epidemiological issues your county faces. That may include such things as food-borne illnesses, environmental hazards, or natural disasters. For a detailed description of this paper, please proceed to the Assignment 1 Grading Rubric.

This assignment is worth 25% of the total course grade.