| Course | NU706 Ethics, Policy, and Advocacy in Population Health |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Distributive justice analysis |
| Length | About 860 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NU706 Unit 2
Twelve Calls, Twenty-Two Patients: A Unit 2 Distributive Justice Analysis of One Diabetes Educator's Week
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
NU706: Ethics, Policy, and Advocacy in Population Health
Unit 2 Distributive Justice Analysis
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The hospital, educator and figures are composite and illustrative; the frameworks and sources cited are real.
The Allocation Problem
The insulin discharge bundle piloted on two medical-surgical units includes a call from the diabetes educator within 72 hours. When other units ask to join, demand will exceed what one educator can do. Hiring a second educator is under discussion but will take at least a year. Meanwhile, every week about ten patients will not receive a call. The question is how to choose, and how to explain the choice.
Principles for Allocating Scarce Interventions
Persad et al. (2009) group allocation principles into four families. Some treat people equally, by lottery or first come, first served. Some favor the worst off, by giving priority to the sickest or the youngest. Some maximize total benefits, by saving the most lives or favoring those with the best prognosis. Some promote social usefulness, by rewarding past contributions or favoring those whose role helps others. Their conclusion is that any one principle, used alone, produces results most people would reject, so a defensible system blends several. Beauchamp and Childress (2019) describe justice in similar terms: fair distribution requires stating which material principles, such as need, effort or contribution, govern a particular allocation and why.
Applying the Principles
First come, first served would give calls to patients discharged early in the week. It is simple and appears neutral, but it rewards timing rather than need and would systematically disadvantage patients discharged on Thursdays and Fridays, who already face weekend gaps in clinic access.
A lottery treats every patient equally and is easy to explain. It ignores the large differences in risk among patients, however: a 45-year-old with a supportive spouse and a 84-year-old who lives alone would have the same chance.
Favoring the worst off would prioritize those at highest risk of a dangerous low or of returning to the hospital. In Geller and colleagues' national estimates, insulin users in their eighties went to emergency departments for insulin-related lows 2.5 times as often as users aged 45 to 64, and were admitted at close to five times the rate (Geller et al., 2014). Local data add living alone, a positive literacy screen and needing an interpreter as markers of risk.
The patient most likely to be harmed without a call is also the one least able to ask for it.
Maximizing benefit would prioritize patients for whom a call most likely prevents a return. That group overlaps with the highest-risk group but not completely: a patient with very complex needs may require a home visit rather than a call, while a moderate-risk patient may be fully helped by one.
Social usefulness, such as prioritizing patients who are caregivers for others, is hard to apply fairly in this setting and risks valuing some lives above others. It is set aside, and the analysis notes that staff should be told explicitly that no patient's occupation or family role will affect priority.
Recommended Rule
The analysis recommends a combined rule. Each patient starting insulin receives a simple priority score at discharge: one point each for age 80 or older, living alone, a positive literacy screen, needing an interpreter and a failed or incomplete return demonstration. Patients with three or more points are referred for a home health visit rather than a call. Calls go to patients in order of score; ties are broken by lottery. Patients not selected receive a printed card with the educator's direct number and the hospital's after-hours line, and the discharging nurse confirms they can reach someone.
This rule combines favoring the worst off with maximizing benefit, uses a lottery where claims are equal and does not consider social worth. It is transparent: patients can be told why they were or were not selected.
Safeguards
A rule can encode bias if its criteria correlate with group membership in unintended ways. The team will review monthly who received calls by language, age, race and insurance, and will check whether patients not called return more often than expected. The rule will be reviewed after three months by the ethics committee and the diabetes team, and patients' views will be gathered through the patient advisor on the project team.
Limits
Any allocation rule is a response to a shortage that the hospital could reduce. The analysis therefore recommends that the data from the rule, especially the number of high-priority patients who could not be called, be included in the case for a second educator. Justice in allocation is not a substitute for adequate resources.
Conclusion
When one educator cannot call every patient, the fairest available rule gives priority to those at highest risk, uses a lottery for equal claims, guarantees every patient a way to reach help and is monitored for unintended disparities. That rule can be explained honestly to patients and staff, and its results can make the case for ending the shortage.
References
Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2019). Principles of biomedical ethics (8th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Geller, A. I., Shehab, N., Lovegrove, M. C., Kegler, S. R., Weidenbach, K. N., Ryan, G. J., & Budnitz, D. S. (2014). National estimates of insulin-related hypoglycemia and errors leading to emergency department visits and hospitalizations. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(5), 678-686. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.136
Persad, G., Wertheimer, A., & Emanuel, E. J. (2009). Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions. The Lancet, 373(9661), 423-431. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60137-9
NU706 Unit 2 instructions, in plain terms
Unit 2 in NU706 moves from one patient to many, asking how a resource too small for everyone should be shared. Prompts typically require a defined scarce resource, the people competing for it, at least two allocation principles applied to the facts and a recommended rule with its justification. The resource does not have to be a ventilator or an organ. A nurse's time, a clinic slot or an educator's phone calls all qualify and often make better papers, because the student knows the numbers. Most sections expect a published allocation framework, cited in APA 7, alongside evidence about who is most at risk. A strong paper also explains how the rule will be monitored and how patients will be told about it, since a fair rule nobody can see fails on transparency, which the rubric often scores on its own line.
How the NU 706 Unit 2 example is put together
The paper begins with the gap in plain numbers, twelve calls against twenty-two discharges, and the reason it cannot be closed this year. Persad and colleagues' four families of principles come next, each in one or two sentences. The application section runs the case through each principle in turn, showing that first come, first served penalizes Friday discharges and that a lottery treats an 84-year-old who lives alone the same as a 45-year-old with a spouse. Geller's figures on emergency visits and admissions by age support giving priority to older patients. A highlighted line states that the person most at risk is least able to ask for help. The rule itself is a five-point score with home visits for the highest scores, followed by safeguards, a limits section arguing for a second educator and a short conclusion.
Where the points sit in the NU706 Unit 2 rubric
An NU706 allocation paper is graded first on how clearly the scarce resource and the competing claims are defined. Credit for ethical reasoning depends on applying named principles to the case rather than defining them in the abstract, and on explaining why one is set aside. The recommended rule earns the largest share of points when it is specific enough to apply on Monday morning and when the writer shows which principles it combines. Graders also look for safeguards against bias and a plan for review, which many drafts omit. Evidence is weighed for accuracy, so risk data should come from published sources. The final points go to organization, APA 7 citations and writing that a manager could read without a glossary. A closing note on reducing the shortage itself usually separates the top papers from the middle.
NU706 Unit 2 help from the desk
A common reason these analyses lose points is that they stop at a comparison of principles and never commit to a rule. Others recommend a rule without testing it against the facts, so a lottery is endorsed without noticing how unevenly risk is spread. Some writers favor social usefulness, such as caregivers first, without seeing how it values some lives above others. Leaving out safeguards is a quieter loss: any score built on age, language or literacy needs monitoring by group. Papers also slip when they treat scarcity as permanent and never mention the case for more resources. Start by counting the resource and the demand for one ordinary week, then write the rule as a sentence a charge nurse could follow. A custom analysis can be built around the shortage on your own unit, with your figures in place of these.
Get an NU706 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Share the resource, the people competing for it and the analysis instructions with the rubric. A custom analysis compares allocation principles and recommends a defensible rule. Turnaround is 24-48h, free the first time. 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.
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NU706 Unit 2 questions, answered
What principles guide allocation of scarce resources?
Common principles include treating people equally, favoring the worst off, maximizing total benefit and promoting social usefulness. Many ethicists recommend combining several rather than relying on one.
Is a lottery ever fair?
Lotteries treat people equally when they have similar claims, but they ignore differences in need or benefit, so they are usually combined with other principles.
Should the analysis recommend a rule?
Yes. The analysis should end with a rule the organization could apply and explain how it would be reviewed.
Where can I find a free NU706 Unit 2 sample paper?
The full NU706 Unit 2 distributive justice analysis is on this page. It allocates twelve weekly follow-up calls among twenty-two patients starting insulin and recommends a scored rule with a lottery for ties.
Why does the NU706 Unit 2 sample reject first come, first served?
Because it rewards timing instead of need. Patients discharged late in the week, who already face weekend gaps in clinic access, would be systematically left without calls.