Study Proposal

Your proposal can be no longer than five pages in length.  This does not include the cover page or appendices.  It is to be electronically submitted to kaelinm@mail.montclair.edu, on or before January 4, 2010.  Proposals submitted after January 4, 2010 will not be evaluated.

The required elements of your Think Like an Epidemiologist Challenge proposal include:

Cover Page

• Title  
• Names of four SO team members
• Name and location of School
• Name of SO Advisor
• Contact Information of SO Advisor (e-mail and phone)

Proposal (not to exceed 5 pages)

• State the study hypothesis that you plan to test. 
• Based on a literature search, explain why the testing of your hypothesis is important (maximum of two paragraphs).
• Identify your exposure and outcome variables.
• Identify the questions and responses options that you will use to measure your exposure variable.
• Identify the questions and responses options that you will use to measure your outcome variable. 
• Describe your cross-sectional study design.
• Describe the source population from which your study sample of students will be selected.
• Describe how your study sample will be selected.
• Identify how many students will be asked to participate in your study.  Describe the basis on which you decided how many students you will ask to participate.
• Describe the process by which potential participants will be contacted and invited to participate. 
• Describe the process by which you will administer the informed consent script.  Possible methods include: 1) reading it to each participant; 2) asking potential participants to read it in the presence of an interviewer; or 3) placing it in a student’s mail box and asking them to read the consent. 
• Describe your data collection procedures and process. Include a description of the mode of administration of the survey (school mail, one-on-one interview, or self-administered in a classroom).
• Describe your data management plan for handling of data collection forms, data storage, and the destruction of electronic and paper copies of data after the SO event.
• Describe your data analysis plan.  Describe how your data will be organized (such as in a contingency table) and analyzed.  Describe how you will calculate the prevalence of your outcome variable and the comparisons you plan to make.
• Describe the limitations of your study. 
• Describe the strengths of your study. 
• Create a study time line that identifies the dates for implementing and completing key study activities.

Required Proposal elements are based on a document developed and designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, and modified for this SO event in October 2009.

Appendices

• Identify the bibliographic references used to create your proposed study.  (You may consult Wikipedia if you wish for ideas about where to look for information, but do not use it as a bibliographic reference.)
• Provide a copy of your adaptation of the informed consent script / form you will administer during your study, based on the template provided.
• Provide a copy of your draft survey that includes 5-15 questions.   
• Provide a certificate for the “Protecting Human Research Participants” Training for each member of the team.

To begin to prepare your proposal, you may wish to familiarize yourself with How to Conduct Surveys: A Step-by-Step Guide (Paperback) by Arlene Fink (Editor), Sheuren Frits, What Is a Survey (PDF file available at http://client.norc.org/whatisasurvey/download.htm) and Choi BCK  and Pak AWC, “A Catalogue of Biases in Questionnaires,“ Preventing Chronic Disease Volume 2, No. 1 January 2005 (http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2005/jan/pdf/04_0050.pdf).  You may also wish to visit http://www.teachepidemiology.org/EpEdRes.html and http://www.epiedmovement.org/links.html