HSC121 Critique of a Health Strategy

Purpose: As future member of the health workforce it is important that students develop skills in evaluating new and existing health strategy. This assignment will help the student critically reflect and evaluate a health strategy and develop knowledge and understanding of its purpose and impact. 

Why do we need to critique?

Writing a critique of a health strategy helps us to develop:

• A knowledge of the health area.
• An understanding of the strategy's purpose,intended audience, development and structure
• A recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy

 Format

Introduction

• Name the strategy being reviewed as well as the date it was created and the name of the author/creator.
• Describe the main argument or purpose of the strategy.
• Explain the context in which the strategy was created. This could include the social or political context, demands to address an emerging or ongoing issue.
• Have a concluding sentence that signposts what your evaluation of the strategy will be. For instance, it may indicate whether it is a positive, negative, or mixed evaluation.

 Critical Evaluation (Body)

This section should give a systematic and detailed assessment of the different elements of the strategy, evaluating how well it would be able to achieve its purpose through these. A critical evaluation does not simply highlight negative impressions. It should deconstruct the strategy and identify both strengths and weaknesses. It should examine the strategy and evaluate its success, in light of its purpose.

Examples of key critical questions that could help your assessment include:

• Is the work presented objectively or subjectively?
• What are the aims of the strategy? Are the aims achievable? If yes, why, if not, why not? What evidence do you have to support your view?
• What assumptions underlie the work? Do they affect its validity?
• What types of evidence or persuasion are used to support the policy? Has evidence been interpreted fairly?
• Does the policy enhance understanding of key ideas or theories? Does the work engage (or fail to engage) with key concepts or other works in its discipline?

 To support your evaluation, you need to provide evidence from the work itself, such as a quote or example, and you should also cite evidence from related sources. Explain how this evidence supports your evaluation of the work.

Tips

If there are both strengths and weakness for sections of the policy, you need to decide overall what your judgement is. For example, you may want to comment on the core strategies and have both positive and negative comments. You could begin by stating what is good about the idea and then concede and explain how it is limited in some way. While this example shows a mixed evaluation, overall you are probably being more negative than positive.

If your critique is more positive than negative, then present the negative points first and the positive last.

If your critique is more negative than positive, then present the positive points first and the negative last.

Conclusion

This is usually a very brief paragraph, which includes:

• A statement indicating the overall evaluation of the work
• A summary of the key reasons identified during the critical evaluation, why this evaluation was formed.

Presentation:

• Essay format, font 12pt either calibri or arial preferred.
• Ensure you have a footer with page numbers and your student name/number.
• Headings are okay to use.
• Reference list at end of document using APA style, a minimum of 4 references used
• No tables, point form or diagrams please.