ACADEMIC YEAR 2022-23

Postgraduate Courses in Public Health and Primary Care

School of Health Sciences

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

Unit title: POPH68001

Semester One
Final
Maximum word limit: 2000
Assignment Weighting 50% of the total marks for this course unit
Assignments must be received by 12.00pm
17th January 2022
(noon) on

*Please contact mph.admin@manchester.ac.uk if any exceptional

circumstances arise in advance of the final deadline*
ASSIGNMENT BRIEF

This assignment has two parts and part one is a group assignment. You
have been assigned to a small group for part one of this assignment. If you
are unsure of your group allocation, contact tanya.walsh@manchester.ac.uk
immediately.

There are two parts to this assignment.

Part One is the group assignment and you must complete this part as a group.
Part Two is an individual assignment and must be completed by you.

ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS

Part One
Group work is essential when carrying out systematic reviews. It is also important
for interpreting their findings. You have been assigned to a group for this task. As
a group, you will need to:

- Decide on a work schedule (i.e. how often you will communicate, establish
deadlines, assign roles)
- Decide on a review to interpret
- Decide on the format of your presentation
- Discuss, interpret and present your work

You have been provided with a wiki page within Blackboard for your Group to
discuss the task and to write your review

As a group, select a systematic review that you are interested in. This can be
any review, but it must be a full review (i.e., not a protocol).

As group develop a 1250 word commentary* of the systematic review you

have selected. This should include:
1. A critique of the systematic review
2. The implications of the review for future research, policy and practice
3. Comments on how the review might be improved

*Your commentary should be in the style of a commentary for a journal (have a

look at the summary reviews in the Evidence Based Dentistry journal for an idea:
https://www.nature.com/ebd/). You will be given credit for producing a well written
critical piece in the style of a commentary for a journal. You will not pass this
assignment if very little or no critique is given. You will not be given credit for
simply answering the questions asked by a critical appraisal tool. (40 marks)
Part Two

You need to complete this part of the assignment by yourself.

1. Write a reflective account of your experience of working within your group to

produce your summary. This account should be no more than 400 words in
length.

To help you to think about what to write, consider the following questions 1:
- Did your group work well together? Why?
- How did your group make decisions such as establishing a work schedule
and assigning roles/tasks to individual members?
- What process did you use to develop your presentation?
- What was your individual role in the group? Do you feel you worked well
as part of your group? Why?
- Do you think your Group’s task was a success? Why?
- What worked well? What was difficult? Why? What would you do
differently next time?
- What has this experience taught you about working in groups?

1
You may address each of these questions in your piece of writing, however you
are not required to do so; these questions are only here in order to help you to
think about what to write. Please do not refer to specific members of your group
by name in your answer. (30 marks)

2. You will need to use RevMan to calculate these answers. Imagine you are
conducting a systematic review of the effectiveness of park prescriptions for
increasing moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in adults of any age.
The outcome MVPA is measure in minutes per week using a device called an
accelerometer. The aim of the intervention is to increase the number of
minutes per week spent in MVPA by participants. Park prescriptions may
work in slightly different ways, particularly in terms of the information and
support given to participants across the different studies but in general the
intervention works by providing the participants with information about
accessible parks and a plan for how they will use the parks for exercise on a
weekly basis.

a. What category of data is the primary outcome? (2 marks)

Table 1 Study outcome data

Study ID Control N Intervention N

Mean (SD) Mean (SD)

Grisedale et 45.78 (9.87) 550 47.28 550

al. 2013. (10.24)

Wastwater et 33.65 99 33.76 98

al. 2009 (14.54) (12.55)

Ullswater et al. 65.73 (8.67) 56 71.98 (6.91) 61

2020

Bassenthwaite 25.12 233 26.59 232

et al. 2019 (12.29) (10.32)

Thirlmere et al. 50.87 84 55.45 81

2002

b. The outcome data is shown in the table above but one of the studies,
Thirlmere 2002, has not reported the standard deviations. They have
however reported the standard error. Work out the standard deviation for
Thirlmere 2002 using the standard error shown in the table below. (4
marks)

Table 2 Outcome data Thirlmere et al. 2002 Means and Standard errors

Study ID Control N Intervention N

Mean (SE) Mean (SE)

Thirlmere et al. 50.87 (0.45) 84 55.45 (0.71) 81

2002

Table 3 Outcome data Thirlmere et al. 2002Means and Standard deviations

Study ID Control N Intervention N

Mean (SD) Mean (SD)

Thirlmere et al.
2002
 c. In a moment you will input this data into RevMan, when you do this,
should you use mean difference for this analysis or standardized mean
difference? Comment on why (2 marks)

d. Should you use a random effects model or a fixed effects model for your
analysis? Comment on why (2 marks)

e. Input the data from Table 1 (including the newly calculated means and
standard deviations for Thirlmere et al. 2002 from 2b.) into RevMan. You
should perform a meta-analysis and calculate the effect estimate. What is
the effect estimate? (8 marks)

f. Comment on the heterogeneity in this analysis and on the statistical and

clinical significance of this effect estimate (12 marks)

LEARNING OUTCOMES TESTED BY THIS ASSESSMENT

 Be able to critically interpret systematic reviews

 Be able to demonstrate effective team working by taking responsibility for
carrying out tasks within a group 
 Be able to construct forest plots using RevMan
 Be able to calculate missing standard deviations

ASSIGNMENT GUIDANCE ON CONTENT AND PRESENTATION

 All assignments should be submitted as word documents or in a rich text

format.

 Submit word-processed work as 1.5 or double spacing and number the

pages

 All students work must have an accurate word count stated at the
top left hand corner of their written assignment. Please note that you
may lose marks if you do not do this, as per word count below.

 Include your student number in the header of your document as a means

of administrative identification. DO NOT WRITE YOUR NAME
ANYWHERE IN THE DOCUMENT.

 On Blackboard, name the submission title assignment file / document in

the following format:
 yourStudentNumber_courseCode_midterm-or-final

 References should be consistently laid out in either Vancouver or Harvard

format.

 Ensure you are familiar with the Faculty PGT Assessment Criteria, which
can be found in the student handbook

WORD COUNT

Students must adhere to the specified maximum word limit stated.

In accordance with the University Policy on Marking:

 
Each written assignment has a word limit which you must state at the top of your
first page. It is acceptable, without penalty, for you to submit an assignment
within a range that is plus 10% of this limit. If you present an assignment with a
word limit substantially exceeding the upper banding, the assignment will be
marked but 1% will be deducted from this mark for every 100 words over the limit
given.

In accordance with accepted academic practice, when submitting any written

assignment for summative assessment, the notion of a word count includes the
following without exception:
 All titles or headings that form part of the actual text. This does not include
the fly page or reference list.
 All words that form the actual essay.
 All words forming the titles for figures, tables and boxes, are included but
this does not include boxes or tables or figures themselves.
 All in-text (that is bracketed) references.
 All directly quoted material.

Please view this video on how to get an accurate word count:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU5aDt1U2jk
PLAGIARISM

The University of Manchester takes plagiarism seriously. All assessed student

work on the MPH is electronically screened for plagiarism and collusion. Any
cases where this is suspected will be referred for investigation at Faculty level.
Please see the link below:

http://www.regulations.manchester.ac.uk/guidance-to-students-on-plagiarism-
and-other-forms-of-academic-malpractice/
However, this screening also identifies students who are not referencing their
work as carefully or as comprehensively as they should. The most common
problem is the incorrect referencing of ‘direct quotes’. If you receive feedback
from your course tutor that your referencing needs attention please go to the
Study Skills Resource in the MPH Programme Community and ensure that you
understand how to reference direct quotes, or you may find yourselves accused
of plagiarism in the future.

SUBMISSION

All assignments are due at 12.00pm UK time (MIDDAY) on the day of

submission. If you have any technical issues with submitting your assignment
you should contact the eLearning team and MPH admin as soon as possible.

Work submitted after the deadline without prior approval will be subject to a late
penalty in accordance with the University Policy on Submission of Work for
Summative Assessment on Taught Programmes. The penalty applied is 10% of
available marks deducted per day/24 hours (from the time of the original or
extended deadline), until the assignment is submitted or no marks remain.

Penalties for late submission relate to 24 hours/calendar days, so include

weekends and weekdays, as well as bank holidays and University closure days.

The mark awarded for the piece of work will be reduced by:
10% of the available marks deducted if up to 24 hours (1 day) late
20% of the available marks deducted if up to 48 hours (2 days) late
30% of the available marks deducted if up to 72 hours (3 days) late
40% of the available marks deducted if up to 96 hours (4 days) late
50% of the available marks deducted if up to 120 hours (5 days) late
60% of the available marks deducted if up to 144 hours (6 days) late
70% of the available marks deducted if up to 168 hours (7 days) late
80% of the available marks deducted if up to 192 hours (8 days) late
90% of the available marks deducted if up to 216 hours (9 days) late
100% of the available marks deducted if up to 240 hours (10 days) late

For work submitted more than 10 days late, it is regarded as a non-submission

and will not be marked. In this case a mark of zero will be awarded and normal
resit regulations will apply.

The sliding scale will only be applied to first-sit submissions. For all
referred (resit) assessment, any late submission will automatically receive
a mark of zero.
The unit tutor may take the decision to provide you with feedback about your
performance, but this will be considered formative feedback only.

FEEDBACK

All students will receive feedback for their assignment through Grademark.
Instructions for accessing this can be found in Blackboard (follow the assignment
link on the course home page). This should be available within 15 working days
of submitting your mid-term assignments and 20 working days for your final
assignment.