Over the past couple of weeks, you took the Community Needs Assessment survey, examined the substance use/misuse data from the Spring 23 semester, and reviewed the background information of a substance that is of most concern for PCC students.

Over the past couple of weeks, you took the Community Needs Assessment survey, examined the substance use/misuse data from the Spring 23 semester, and reviewed the background information of a substance that is of most concern for PCC students. Now, you will synthesize that information to draft a persuasive letter addressed to the Office of Student Life to highlight the issue in an evidence-based manner.

has a great article about how to write a persuasive letter that has suggestions for how to organize your ideas and gives you an example of how you will need to format your letter. As you are writing, be concise and try to use clear, uncluttered sentences. The specific requirements for your letter are listed below. Remember to refer to the resources provided in the Preliminary Data Analysis and CNA Research to help you construct your letter.

Key Content

State your main point in the first couple of sentences. Start with a friendly opening sentence, then get straight to the point. Explain the context of the survey and include the details listed below. Then state which substance your group found to be the most concerning and should be addressed by PCC.

Community Needs Assessment was developed in a collaborative effort with Day One, a public health non-profit based in Pasadena

Period of data collection: Spring 2023 semester

Sampling methodology and population: convenience sampling of PCC students

Sample size: 264 responses

Emphasize the importance of your request. Use published empirical evidence (i.e., national/state-level statistics) and results from the PCC CNA survey to highlight the severity of substance use/misuse. In a couple of sentences, highlight the main physiological/social impacts and implications of substance use.

Support your request in the next paragraphs. The next few paragraphs should justify your position by providing background information and details. Use statistics and facts to appeal to your reader’s reason and cite your sources.

Discuss the health risks of substance use/abuse and the risk it poses to a college-age population. Explain the physiological mechanism, appropriate for a general audience. Use published empirical evidence and weave in statistics evidence to support your argument.

Highlight potential risk factors (e.g., age, socioeconomic status, mental health, perceived risk, etc.) that are associated with substance use. Use demographic analysis of CNA data to support your argument.

Close the letter by proposing several potential interventions or ideas that PCC can explore to potentially address substance use. These should be evidence-based approaches to reduce substance at the school or community level.

Include a full reference list for all in-text citations at the end. This should be on a separate page.

Formatting

Your letter must:

Be in business format (block formatting)

Include your address (you can use PCC’s address)

Include the name and address of the recipient

Office of Student Life

Pasadena City College

1570 E Colorado Blvd, CC-105

Pasadena, CA 91106

Start with a salutation and end with a closing statement

Since there are multiple authors, you can close with “We, the undersigned:” and include the names and signatures of each group member

Use at least 5 unique statistics from the CNA Survey Results to support your argument

2 of these statistics should be from your demographic analysis

Cite a minimum of 5 credible sources

Be no longer than 2 pages + 1 separate page for citations

Submission Guidelines

This assignment will be submitted via Turnitin. You can submit it by uploading a file (pdf, doc, docx) or submitting the link to a Google Doc by clicking ‘Upload assignment’ on the dashboard below. This is a group assignment, so only one submission is required. This assignment will be graded using the rubric below.

Note: While I am not specifically grading you on your spelling or grammar, scientific communication is an important skill. Please proofread and spellcheck before submitting to ensure that your ideas come across clearly. Up to 10% may be deducted for excessive grammar and spelling errors that affect the readability of your wor

I put a document at the bottom with all the research that needs to be used for the essay