PH 150B | Intro to Environmental Health Science
Term Paper Suggested Outline

– I am working on how the x-ray radiation during the pregnancy effects the pregnancy women and deformed[malformed] child, postnatal and prenatal . We see the warning sign in front of the x-ray or CT photographing. ATTENTION PREGnancy women and so on.

The goal of the term paper assignment is to stimulate you to think through a problem in environmental or occupational health, integrating what you have learned about the various disciplines within environmental health sciences (toxicology, exposure science, epidemiology, risk assessment and regulatory policy). The key to writing a quality term paper is to try to tell a good story from introduction to conclusion, supported by citations from relevant scientific and policy literature. In other words is the research strong and consistent for the topic you have chosen, or is there ambiguity in the literature and discrepancies or conflicting results in the studies you review?

Below is a suggested outline for your paper. All of these points in the outline may or may not apply to your particular topic, so feel free to adapt as necessary (change order of points/sub-points, omit or add topic areas). However, a thoroughly researched paper will cover most of these topic areas.

Please remember that your research should be drawn primarily from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, although you can certainly look for background information that describes your topic in newspapers and other media sources. Peer-reviewed journal articles are searchable through databases such as PubMed Central, Web of Science, JStor, Google Scholar, and others. Now is a great time to start gathering your sources (cite as you write)! In the end, you should have ~10 journal articles to support your topic (although this isn’t required for your outline).

The paper should clearly answer:
• The problem to be addressed (i.e., what is the hazard?)
• What is the source of the contaminant or problem?
• Who is affected by this issue (who are the stakeholders)?
• How much of the contaminant constitutes a concern?
• What are the routes of exposure?
• What are the health effects (positive or negative)?
• What is the context of your discussion (i.e. the time and place)?
• Is the issue very localized, global or something in-between?
• How the problem is managed or mitigated (e.g., regulations, incentives or industry self-regulation)?
• How is risk communicated to populations of interest?

Name:
GSI Name & Section Number:

1) Title – an excellent paper has a descriptive and clear title

2) Introduction
a. Problem statement: what is your topic?
b. Briefly describe the environmental exposure and associated health outcomes
c. Scope of your problem

3) Background
a. Any relevant background information to give context about your topic
b. Ex. How much is known about the problem you are discussing? Is this a well-understood exposure/outcome scenario? Less understood?

4) Sources, routes and levels of exposure
a. Describe the source of environmental contaminant you have chosen to discuss
i. Air, water, or soil contamination? Consumer products? Others?
b. How is the study population(s) exposed? (There may be multiple routes of exposure.)
i. Ingestion, inhalation, dermal, in utero
ii. Describe different exposure routes and what is most significant
c. What levels of exposure are of concern?
i. At what levels are health effects seen?
ii. Is there latency between exposure and development of disease?

5) Health outcomes (positive or negative)
a. What health outcomes are associated with this exposure (you don’t have to discuss all of them)?
b. Are you discussing all of them, or focusing on particular outcomes?

6) Affected Populations
a. Which populations and/or who is exposed (children, adults, workers in certain occupations)?
b. Are there vulnerable subpopulations that may experience higher levels of exposure?
c. Susceptibility: which potentially exposed populations may be more or less susceptible to exposure and why?

7) Related Environmental Policy or regulation
a. Related environmental or public health policy
b. Regulation – is the environmental contaminant you are examining regulated? To what level? By which agencies?
c. Is this level of regulation appropriate? Why or why not?

8) Your recommendations (if applicable)

9) Conclusion
a. Recap your main points
b. What evidence did you find in the scientific literature to support your topic?
c. What should be done about this problem?