Policy Brief Instructions

The policy brief should answer the following questions:
• What is the nature and magnitude of the problem?
• Who is affected by it?
• What are the determinants of and risk factors for the problem?
• What are the health, economic, and social consequences of the problem?
• What few priority steps do you recommend be taken to address the problem, at least cost, in doable, sustainable, and fair ways? What is your rationale for these recommendations?
Write the summary and the topic sentence as if it is the only thing that the Minister of Finance is going to read. Your evidence–based story line should include who gets the disease, why they get it, why the reader should care, and how the problem can be addressed in the fastest, least–expensive manner possible. When you make your argument, give information about the relative cost–effectiveness of your proposal with evidence.

Topic
The policy brief will summarize, for a country of your choice, the burden of either a particular infectious disease OR a particular non–communicable disease. It will state who is most affected by this disease/condition, the key risk factors, the economic and social costs of the disease/condition, and what might be done to address the disease/condition in cost–effective ways.

Note that since TB/HIV co–infection was used in the sample summary paragraph above, students may not use it as the topic of their policy brief. Similarly, since HIV/AIDS was the topic of the sample policy brief on UM Learn, that topic is off limits to students.