| Course | PU555 Foundations of Public Health Research |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Research question memo |
| Length | About 820 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | Master of Public Health (MPH) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PU555 Unit 2
Three Terms, Each Checkable Against a File: A Unit 2 Research Question Memo Turning an Interest in Unrecognized Kidney Disease Into a Question a Data Set Can Answer, With the Two Versions That Were Rejected
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
PU555: Foundations of Public Health Research
Unit 2 Research Question Memo
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The memo's instructor and course context are the assignment's; the variables, data sets and research cited are real.
Memorandum
To: Course instructor, PU 555 From: Student researcher Subject: Final research question, with the two versions it replaced
The Question
Among United States adults aged 20 and over whose estimated glomerular filtration rate falls between 30 and 59 in the standard units, what proportion say a clinician has ever told them their kidneys are diseased, and does that proportion differ by whether the respondent has a usual place of care?
Why Each Term Is Checkable
1. Adults aged 20 and over: an age variable present in the national examination survey I intend to use.
2. Estimated filtration between 30 and 59: computed from a measured serum creatinine value in the same survey, using the 2021 equation that removed the race coefficient (Inker et al., 2021). This is a laboratory value rather than a self-report, which is what makes the question answerable at all.
3. Ever told by a clinician: a single survey item asked of all participants, with yes, no, refused and do not know as responses.
4. Usual place of care: a separate survey item, dichotomized to yes or no.
Every term above corresponds to a named variable in a public file. That is the test this memo applies, and it is the reason the question survived while the earlier versions did not.
Version One, and Why It Failed
First draft: why are so many people with kidney disease unaware of it? The term that fails is why. A question beginning with why implies a causal design, and the available data are cross-sectional, so the honest answer would be a list of associations presented as explanations. The draft also left kidney disease undefined, which in practice means either a laboratory value, a diagnosis code or a patient's own report, and those three identify different groups of people.
Version Two, and Why It Failed
Second draft: do patients with chronic kidney disease receive adequate education about their condition? Two problems. Adequate is not measurable without a standard, and no standard exists that the data could be compared against. And receive education is not recorded anywhere in the files I have access to; what is recorded is whether a person says they were told something. The gap between those two is the subject of a later unit in this course rather than a variable in this one. A question is finished when every term in it names something a file contains, and not before.
What Is Already Known, and the Space Left
National estimates have put awareness among adults with moderately reduced function below one in ten, with awareness rising as function falls further but remaining low (Plantinga et al., 2008). Awareness also varies with clinical markers beyond filtration rate, including albuminuria, which suggests that people with the same filtration value are not equally likely to have been told (Tuot et al., 2011). What is less settled is how awareness relates to having a usual source of care, which is the comparison this question adds and which matters because it points at a system rather than at patients.
What the Question Will Not Answer
It will not establish that having a usual source of care causes awareness, since people with regular care differ in insurance, income and health in ways no cross-sectional adjustment removes. It will not say what patients were told or how, which is why the proposal in Unit 10 pairs this analysis with interviews. And it will not cover adults with stage 1 or 2 disease, where filtration alone does not define the condition and albuminuria data would be required.
Feasibility
The data are public, documented and free, and the analysis is a weighted proportion with a stratified comparison, which is within the methods this course covers. The main feasibility risk is sample size: adults in the 30 to 59 band are a small fraction of any survey cycle, so the analysis will pool several cycles and report the unweighted count behind every estimate. A secondary risk is that the awareness item's wording changed between cycles, which I will verify in the documentation before pooling and report if it did.
Request
I am asking for confirmation that the question as written is acceptable for the proposal, and for guidance on one point: whether to keep the usual-source-of-care comparison as a second aim or to fold it into the first. My own view is that it should stay separate, because a single pooled proportion with no comparison inside it would describe the problem without pointing anywhere.
References
Inker, L. A., Eneanya, N. D., Coresh, J., Tighiouart, H., Wang, D., Sang, Y., Crews, D. C., Doria, A., Estrella, M. M., Froissart, M., Grams, M. E., Greene, T., Grubb, A., Gudnason, V., Gutierrez, O. M., Kalil, R., Karger, A. B., Mauer, M., Navis, G., ... Levey, A. S. (2021). New creatinine- and cystatin C-based equations to estimate GFR without race. The New England Journal of Medicine, 385(19), 1737-1749. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2102953
Plantinga, L. C., Boulware, L. E., Coresh, J., Stevens, L. A., Miller, E. R., Saran, R., Messer, K. L., Levey, A. S., & Powe, N. R. (2008). Patient awareness of chronic kidney disease: Trends and predictors. Archives of Internal Medicine, 168(20), 2268-2275. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.168.20.2268
Tuot, D. S., Plantinga, L. C., Hsu, C. Y., Jordan, R., Burrows, N. R., Hedgeman, E., Yee, J., Saran, R., & Powe, N. R. (2011). Chronic kidney disease awareness among individuals with clinical markers of kidney dysfunction. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 6(8), 1838-1844. https://doi.org/10.2215/CJN.00730111
The Purdue Global PU555 Unit 2 instructions
Unit 2 usually asks for a memo stating a final research question and defending it. Use memo form with a reader and a subject line. State the question once, in a single sentence, then test each term against a named variable in a real file; that test is the assignment. Show the drafts you rejected and say which word failed, since the rejected versions demonstrate judgment that the final question alone cannot. Avoid why unless you have a design that can answer it, and avoid evaluative adjectives that no instrument measures. Summarize what is already known and the space left for your question. Say what the question will not answer. Close with a specific request to the instructor rather than a general invitation to comment.
Inside the PU555 Unit 2 example
The memo here carries a header, states the question in one sentence, and then lists four terms with the variable each one corresponds to, and a margin note explains why rejected drafts are shown rather than hidden. Version one is rejected for beginning with why, which implies a causal design the cross-sectional data cannot support, and for leaving the condition undefined across laboratory value, diagnosis code and self-report. Version two is rejected for the words adequate and receive education, neither of which any file records. A highlighted line states the test the memo applies throughout. Sections on what is known, what the question cannot answer and feasibility follow, flagged by two further margin notes, and the memo closes with one decision the writer asks the instructor to settle.
Reading the PU555 Unit 2 grading rubric
Rubrics for a question memo put most of the points in operational precision. Credit goes to each term being matched to a variable in a named data source, which is the difference between a question and a topic. The rejected drafts earn marks when the specific failing word is identified rather than described vaguely. Points go to stating what the question cannot answer, since a student who claims causal reach from cross-sectional data loses more than they gain. Feasibility is scored on sample size, access and whether the analysis sits inside the methods the course teaches. Memo form matters: a reader, a subject, a single question sentence and a concrete request. APA 7 citation of the background literature completes the score.
PU555 Unit 2 help: mistakes that cost points
Three errors recur in this unit. The first is a question that still contains an unmeasurable word, usually adequate, effective, appropriate or sufficient; delete it and ask what the file holds instead. The second is a why question answered with cross-sectional data, which produces associations presented as explanations. The third is leaving the condition undefined, since a laboratory value, a billing code and a patient's own report identify three different groups of people. Also check your own feasibility honestly: a narrow band in a national survey may hold only a few hundred people per cycle, and pooling has to be planned rather than discovered. A memo for your own topic takes 24 to 48 hours.
Get a PU555 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Send the question as it stands now, however loose; the Unit 2 memo prompt and rubric go with it. Each term gets defined, matched to a place it can be observed, and joined into a single sentence whose verb fits the design. Delivery runs 24-48h; a first custom sample costs nothing. 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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PU555 Unit 2 questions, answered
Where can I find a free PU555 Unit 2 sample paper?
The full research question memo, including both rejected drafts, is open on this page.
How do you know a question is narrow enough?
When every term in it names something a data file contains. If one term does not, the question is still a topic.
Why avoid starting a question with why?
Because why implies causation, and a cross-sectional file can only show association. Say what you can measure and leave the explanation to the design that can carry it.
Should a memo show rejected versions?
Yes. The rejected drafts show the judgment that produced the final question, and this unit grades that judgment.
How long is a research question memo?
Four to five pages, with the question, the term-by-term test, the rejected drafts, what is known and a feasibility section.