| Course | MPH 500 Introduction to Public Health Systems, Organizations, & Practice |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Policy brief memo |
| Length | About 840 words, 4 pages |
| Format | Memo with APA 7 citations |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Public Health (MPH) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MPH 500 Week 5
Memorandum
To: Harbor County Board of Commissioners
From: Harbor County Health Department, Division of Environmental Health
Date: 2 March 2026
Re: Request: adopt a cooling tower registration and maintenance ordinance before the summer Legionella season
The Request
Adopt an ordinance by 1 June 2026 requiring every owner of a cooling tower in Harbor County to register it with the health department, keep a written maintenance plan and test it for Legionella every quarter, with an annual registration fee of $150 per tower to fund oversight. Only this board can adopt such a requirement; the board of health's regulatory authority does not extend to building water systems.
The Problem, Sized
Reported Legionnaires' disease in the county rose from 14 cases in 2021 to 31 in 2025. Most were hospitalized, and three people died last year. In August 2025, nine cases clustered near the county's older industrial district, and investigators could not find the source because no one knows where the county's cooling towers are: city permit records list 212, and staff estimate more than 300 exist. Investigators located and sampled 14 near the cluster; at least 20 more could not be found.
What the Evidence Says
Reviews of outbreaks across North America found that most involved preventable failures in managing building water (Garrison et al., 2016). In New York City, cooling tower outbreaks led to a law requiring registration, maintenance and testing, and the registry made it possible to sample every tower near a cluster within days (Fitzhenry et al., 2017). In Garland, Texas, a local testing mandate for apartment cooling towers, in place for more than a decade, was followed by fewer contaminated towers over time, with building manager education central to its success (Whitney et al., 2017).
Options
Option A, registration only: owners list each tower with the health department. Cost to owners is the fee; the county gains an inventory for outbreak investigations, but nothing requires maintenance, so towers are found faster but not cleaned more often.
Option B, registration, maintenance plan and quarterly testing, recommended: owners register, keep a plan based on the national consensus standard for building water (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, 2018) and test quarterly, reporting results above a set threshold within 24 hours. The county gains an inventory and prevention.
Option C, no action: the county continues to respond to cases without the ability to prevent them or reliably find their source.
Table 1
Options Compared
| Option A | Option B, recommended | Option C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory for outbreaks | Yes | Yes | No |
| Required maintenance | No | Yes | No |
| Cost to each owner per year | $150 fee | $150 fee plus about $1,200 in testing | None |
| County oversight funded | Partly | Yes | No |
Note. Note. Testing cost based on quotes from two regional laboratories for four tests a year.
Cost, Including the Cost of Doing Nothing
At an estimated 320 towers, registration fees would raise about $48,000 a year, enough for a half-time environmental health specialist, training and a registry in the existing permit database. Owners would also pay about $1,200 a year per tower for testing; many larger owners already pay water treatment vendors who could do it. The cost of inaction falls elsewhere: on patients and their families, on the county's two epidemiologists, who spent most of three weeks on the 2025 cluster, and on the hospitals that treat each case. Doing nothing also leaves the county unable to finish the next outbreak investigation, whenever it comes.
How Enforcement Would Work
The ordinance would be enforced the way the county already enforces pool permits. Registration would be online, using the permit system the division already runs. Owners would upload a maintenance plan once and quarterly test results each season. A result above the action level would trigger disinfection within 48 hours and a retest, confirmed by the division. Specialists would inspect a sample of towers each year, starting with those near past cases. Penalties would follow the pool permit schedule: a warning, then fines, and, in an imminent hazard, an order to shut the tower down until cleaned.
Anticipated Objections
Two objections are likely. Building owners will say the testing cost is a burden, especially for older apartment complexes; the ordinance could phase testing in over a year and offer a reduced fee for buildings with one tower. And some will say the problem is too small to regulate, with 31 cases a year in a county of 412,000. But those cases are concentrated in a few neighborhoods, the county cannot currently find their source and each outbreak consumes its small epidemiology staff for weeks.
Timing
Legionella cases in the county peak from July to September. An ordinance adopted by 1 June, with registration due by 1 August and the first quarterly test by 30 September, would give the county an inventory before the next peak season ends.
The Decision Requested
Direct the county attorney to draft an ordinance on Option B for first reading at the board's April meeting, with a public hearing in May.
References
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. (2018). Legionellosis: Risk management for building water systems (ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 188-2018).
Fitzhenry, R., Weiss, D., Cimini, D., Balter, S., Boyd, C., Alleyne, L., Stewart, R., McIntosh, N., Econome, A., Lin, Y., Rubinstein, I., Passaretti, T., Kidney, A., Lapierre, P., Kass, D., & Varma, J. K. (2017). Legionnaires' disease outbreaks and cooling towers, New York City, New York, USA. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23(11), 1769-1776. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2311.161584
Garrison, L. E., Kunz, J. M., Cooley, L. A., Moore, M. R., Lucas, C., Schrag, S., Sarisky, J., & Whitney, C. G. (2016). Vital signs: Deficiencies in environmental control identified in outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease: North America, 2000-2014. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 65(22), 576-584. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6522e1
Whitney, E. A., Blake, S., & Berkelman, R. L. (2017). Implementation of a Legionella ordinance for multifamily housing, Garland, Texas. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 23(6), 601-607. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000000518
MPH 500 Week 5 instructions, in plain terms
Put the request at the top, with what is being asked, by when and why this body is the one that can act. State the problem in a few sentences, with one or two figures that carry the scale for this reader. Keep evidence in clauses and short sentences rather than paragraphs. Compare a small number of options briefly, ideally in a table, and mark the one you recommend. Describe how the policy would work in practice, including enforcement. Anticipate the strongest objections and respond to them. State the cost of each option, including the cost of doing nothing and who would bear it. Close with timing and the specific decision requested. Avoid a slow opening or a recommendation buried at the bottom of the second page.
How this MPH 500 Week 5 example is built
The memo header names the county board and a request with a deadline. The request section specifies registration, a maintenance plan, quarterly testing and a $150 fee, and explains why only the board can act. The problem section gives the rise to 31 cases, three deaths and a cluster near the industrial district where 14 towers were sampled and more than 20 could not be found. Evidence is compressed into three sentences: a federal outbreak review and two cities with tower rules. Three options are compared in a table. Enforcement follows the pool permit model. Two objections, cost to apartment owners and the small number of cases, are answered. Costs include about $48,000 in fees, owners' testing and the cost of inaction, followed by timing and the request.
MPH 500 Week 5 rubric: what full points look like
The first loss is the essay in brief clothing: a slow opening, evidence in full paragraphs and the recommendation at the bottom of the second page. It fails on function whatever the quality of its research. The second is a brief with no addressee, where a strong argument is made and nobody is asked to do anything. Marks are also lost for several figures crowding the problem statement, for options described unevenly so that the favored option wins without a contest, and for a missing cost of inaction. Graders reward briefs that lead with the request, name the body with authority, compare options fairly, anticipate objections and end with a specific, timed decision.
MPH 500 Week 5 help: mistakes that cost points
A policy brief is judged on whether the reader can act on it after one page. Describe the problem, the body that could act and the choices on the table, and the brief can open with the request, size the problem with one or two figures, compress the evidence, compare options fairly, answer the strongest objections and state the cost of doing nothing. Naming a timeline tied to when the problem peaks often gives a brief its urgency. The request and the evidence are your own.
Get a MPH-500 Week 5 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 5 instructions with any template your section supplies and the issue you are writing about, and a custom example is built to that format and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. Which request to make stays yours.
More MPH 500 papers and MPH samples
- MPH 500 Week 1: Upstream Walk Post
- MPH 500 Week 2: Public Health Systems Analysis
- MPH 500 Week 3: Agency Profile
- MPH 500 Week 4: Essential Services Analysis
- MPH 500 Week 6: Stakeholder Analysis
- MPH 500 Week 7: Program Evaluation Plan
- MPH 500 Week 8: Synthesis Presentation
MPH 500 Week 5 questions, answered
What makes this an introductory brief rather than an advocacy one?
The authority section carries more weight here than the persuasion does. Later courses assume you already know which body can act and spend the page moving them; this one is largely testing whether you can establish that at all. A brief that identifies the right actor and asks them for something modest scores above one that argues forcefully at nobody in particular.
What if several bodies share authority?
Name the one that could act most directly and say what the others would need to do. Shared authority is common in public health and a brief that maps it briefly reads as informed. What loses marks is leaving the question open, since a reader then has to work out for themselves whether the request is even addressed to them.
How much evidence should sit on the page?
Enough to make the request defensible and no more, with everything else in references. Two or three citations behind the claims that carry the ask is the usual shape. What gets marked here is whether the evidence supports the specific thing being requested, since briefs assembled from whatever research turned up tend to argue for the problem rather than for the remedy.
Where can I find a free MPH 500 Week 5 sample paper?
This page carries the complete policy brief asking a county board to adopt a cooling tower ordinance.
Who bears the cost of inaction in the MPH 500 Week 5 sample?
Patients and families, the county's two epidemiologists who spent weeks on the 2025 cluster and the hospitals that treat each case.