NU505's opening board, shown here with a composite newsletter headline about a real Nurses' Health Study analysis, pins a hazard ratio to its outcome, period and population before converting it into an absolute difference. Searches like "nu 505 unit 1 assignment example", "nu505 unit 1 sample" and "nu505 unit 1 example" land here.
"58 Percent Higher Diabetes Risk for Night-Shift Nurses": Outcome, Period and Population First, Then the Absolute Difference
NU505 · Unit 1 Discussion
Posted by [Student Name]
The newsletter is a composite; the cohort study it reports is real and cited.
Initial Post
Our employee newsletter this month ran the headline "Night-shift nurses face 58 percent higher diabetes risk." The figure is real, but it is the far end of a dose pattern, and it means little until three questions are answered.
Outcome. The study behind it followed women in two Nurses' Health Study cohorts and counted incident type 2 diabetes, self-reported and then confirmed by a validated supplementary questionnaire (Pan et al., 2011). That is a diagnosis, not a single abnormal lab value, so the ratio is about something with real consequences.
Period. Follow-up ran 18 to 20 years. The 58 percent applies to women who reported twenty or more years of rotating night shifts, defined as at least three nights a month on top of days and evenings. For one to two years of rotating nights the hazard ratio was 1.05, barely different from none; for three to nine years it was 1.20; for ten to nineteen, 1.40. The headline took the largest number from the longest exposure and presented it as the risk of working nights.
Population. The cohorts were women nurses: 69,269 aged 42 to 67 in the first cohort and 107,915 aged 25 to 42 in the second, all free of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline. The result may not transfer to men, or to newer staff whose schedules look different from those of the 1990s.
With those anchors, the ratio can be turned into something a nurse can weigh. In the older cohort, 6,165 of 69,269 women developed diabetes over about 20 years, roughly 9 in 100 overall. If about 8 in 100 women with no shift work develop diabetes over 20 years, a hazard ratio of 1.58 corresponds to about 12 in 100, around 4 additional cases per 100 nurses over two decades. That is an approximation from a ratio, not a figure the authors reported, and it applies only to the longest exposure.
Two further facts shape the decision. Adjusting for updated body weight shrank the twenty-year ratio from 1.58 to 1.24, which suggests part of the risk runs through weight gain. And shift work is not randomly assigned, so some of the association may reflect who takes night positions, the kind of selection that any observational design must be read against (Polit & Beck, 2021). For employee health, I would propose one change: offer diabetes risk screening and a weight-focused prevention referral to staff with ten or more cumulative years on rotating nights, the group where the ratio becomes meaningful.
Reply to Andrea
Andrea, you wrote that the study "proves night shifts cause diabetes." I would ask what a cohort can prove here. It shows that risk rose with each additional band of years, which is consistent with a causal effect, but it cannot rule out that nurses who stay on nights for twenty years differ in ways the adjustments missed. What would you want measured to be more confident?
Reply to Kevin
Kevin, your point about younger staff is well taken. The second cohort did include women aged 25 to 42, so the finding is not only about older nurses, but none of the participants were men. I would not quote the 58 percent to a male colleague as if it were his risk.
References
Pan, A., Schernhammer, E. S., Sun, Q., & Hu, F. B. (2011). Rotating night shift work and risk of type 2 diabetes: Two prospective cohort studies in women. PLoS Medicine, 8(12), e1001141. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001141
Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2021). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (11th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
How this NU505 Unit 1 example is structured
Three questions organize the post, asked in the order a reader needs the answers. Outcome comes first, since a higher risk of an abnormal lab value, a diagnosis and a hospitalization would mean different things; here it is confirmed type 2 diabetes. Period follows, because the 58 percent applies only to twenty or more years of rotating nights over 18 to 20 years of follow-up, and shorter exposures carried much smaller ratios. Population comes third: women nurses in two Nurses' Health Study cohorts, with no men. Only then does arithmetic appear, and the conversion to about 4 extra cases per 100 over two decades is labeled as an approximation. The post closes on weight as a partial pathway, on shift work not being randomly assigned, and on one employee health decision for nurses with ten or more years of nights.
Get an NU505 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Every Unit 1 prompt in NU505 carries its own claim or figure, so the post is written around the one your section assigns. Paste it with the instructions and your rubric. Replies are included, the reasoning is anchored before any arithmetic, and the first custom sample is free, back to you within 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
NU505 Unit 1 questions, answered
Why does the post refuse to use the 30 percent figure on its own?
Because a relative risk without a baseline cannot tell anyone how much difference the exposure makes. Thirty percent more of a rare outcome is a handful of cases; thirty percent more of a common one is many. The example keeps the ratio but pairs it with 18 additional diagnoses per 1,000 over ten years, which a nurse or an employer can actually weigh.
Is the number needed to harm appropriate in a discussion post?
It can be, when framed carefully. It turns an absolute difference into a count of people exposed per extra outcome, which is intuitive. In an observational study it describes an association rather than a proven effect, and the example says so. Some sections prefer the absolute difference alone at this early stage, so the prompt's wording decides whether to include it.
What makes a strong reply on this board?
A reply that applies the same anchors to a classmate's example, rather than praising the original post. Asking what the outcome was, over what period and in whom, then suggesting what the absolute figure might be, shows the skill the unit is building. Each reply in the example closes on something the classmate could check in the source they cited.