Short answerHealth disparities

Identify prevalent issues or diseases Essay

The unit is named for a reason. Telemetry admits a specific set of conditions, and the comparison has to be about those rather than about population health in the abstract.

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 25, 2026

Written by

Maren Caldwell

MSN, RN, CNE

Medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology and NCLEX preparation

Reviewed by

Dr. Tessa Redmond

DNP, RN, CNE

Evidence-based practice and clinical education

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Interpret the task
Assignment instructions
Deliverables
Proposed outline
Research plan
Reference shortlist
Final review

The telemetry unit narrows the comparison

Med-surg telemetry is the constraint that makes this answerable. Patients arrive there with cardiac and metabolic conditions that need monitoring, so the prevalent issues worth discussing are the ones that fill those beds: hypertension and its complications, heart failure, stroke, arrhythmia, diabetes and chronic kidney disease. Each of these has documented differences in prevalence, age at onset and outcome between African American and White American populations, and the differences are not uniform in direction or size, which is why the brief asks for commonalities as well as differences. Hypertension is the clearest case, with earlier onset, higher prevalence and higher rates of associated organ damage, and it feeds directly into most of the other conditions on the list. Starting from the bed list rather than from a national health profile is what keeps the answer inside the practice setting the brief names, and it makes the commonalities easier to see because the two populations are on the same unit for overlapping reasons.

Be careful about mechanism, because the brief asks for factual information and the explanatory step is where these assignments most often go wrong. Race is not a biological cause of these differences; the pathways that carry them include access to primary care and therefore to earlier diagnosis, treatment intensity once diagnosed, insurance and cost barriers, environmental exposure and chronic stress, and documented differences in how symptoms are assessed and treated, of which the pain literature is the best evidenced. Saying that precisely is what makes the third question answerable, since a practice change has to attach to a pathway you can reach from a telemetry unit: how discharge teaching is delivered and checked, whether follow-up is arranged before discharge rather than left to the patient, whether symptom reports are assessed consistently, and whether medication cost is asked about before a regimen is sent home. None of those requires a policy change to attempt.

Likely learning objectives

Narrow a population comparison to the conditions the setting admits.
Report commonalities as well as differences between populations.
Attribute differences to pathways rather than to race itself.
Choose a practice change that a unit nurse could actually make.

Assignment instructions

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Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Identify prevalent issues or diseases that affect the health of the African American community. Compare and contrast the African American population & the White American population in the Med-Surge/Telemetry practice that are affected by the above issue(s) or disease(s) by listing their commonalities and their differences. Base on the information above, how can you change or refine your practice to meet each community’s specific needs? Use factual information. You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Identify prevalent issues or diseases Essay Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

Course-wide instructions that accompany this question

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS Discussion Questions (DQ) Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses. Weekly Participation Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. APA Format and Writing Quality Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required). Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation. I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition. Use of Direct Quotes I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source. LopesWrite Policy For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me. Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes. Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own? Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score. Late Policy The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Identify prevalent issues or diseases Essay

What this assignment asks for

01Prevalent issues or diseases affecting the health of the African American community.
02A comparison of the African American and White American populations in the medical-surgical telemetry practice affected by those issues.
03Their commonalities and their differences, listed.
04How you would change or refine your practice to meet each community's specific needs.
05Factual information supporting the answer.