| Course | MPH 503 Advocacy in Public Health Policy and Law |
|---|---|
| Week | 2 |
| Paper type | One-page policy brief |
| Length | About 700 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 503 Week 2
Memorandum
To: Council Member, District 4, Chair, Housing and Neighborhoods Committee
From: Riverton Heat and Housing Working Group, public health graduate student lead
Date: 9 February 2026
Re: Request: schedule a hearing in April on a cooling standard for rental housing
The Request
Please schedule a hearing before the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee in April 2026 on a change to the city's housing code under which every rental unit would need working cooling that can hold one living space at 82 degrees Fahrenheit or cooler. Housing code changes reach the floor only through your committee, so this hearing is the first step and only you can schedule it.
The Problem, Sized for This Committee
In 2025, 61 Riverton residents died of heat. Twenty-seven died indoors, and in 19 of those homes cooling had failed or had never been installed, and District 4 was home to six of them. The code obliges landlords to supply winter heat to 68 degrees; on summer cooling it is silent in a city where summer afternoons regularly pass 105 degrees.
The Mechanism and Its Level
This is a city decision. State landlord-tenant law fixes a habitability floor and lets cities to add requirements through local housing codes; it preempts local rent control but not habitability standards. An amendment adopted by the council would be enforced by Neighborhood Services inspectors through the existing complaint and inspection process, the same process now used for broken furnaces, with a 72-hour repair deadline during excessive heat warnings.
What the Evidence Says
In the 1995 Chicago heat wave, people with working air conditioning were much less likely to die than neighbors without it (Semenza et al., 1996). Pooled results from heat wave studies point the same way: having air conditioning at home ranked among the factors most strongly linked to survival (Bouchama et al., 2007). Several cities in hot climates already set a maximum indoor temperature that landlords must be able to achieve, so Riverton would not be acting alone or untested. The evidence is about cooling itself, not any particular device, which is why the standard is written as a temperature rather than an equipment requirement.
Cost
For landlords whose units already have working cooling, the amendment costs nothing beyond repairs they should already be making. For units without cooling, a window or portable unit for one room costs roughly $400 to $900 installed. The city's electric utility offers rebates on efficient units, and the working group has asked it to direct those rebates to landlords bringing units into compliance. The cost of not acting is measured in deaths: 19 last summer in homes this amendment would have covered.
What We Are Not Asking
The proposal leaves rents alone, does not demand central air and sets no temperature for bedrooms beyond the one room. The standard covers one habitable room, which is what a person needs to survive the hottest hours.
Why Before Summer
Heat deaths in Riverton cluster between mid-June and early September, with most occurring during excessive heat warnings. An April hearing allows a council vote in May and an effective date of 1 June, giving landlords a month to repair or install cooling before the first warnings are usually issued. A hearing scheduled after June would leave another summer under the current code.
A Risk Worth Naming
Cities that adopt public health protections sometimes find that a state legislature later preempts them, often at the urging of affected industries (Pomeranz & Pertschuk, 2017). A cooling standard could draw that response from statewide landlord groups. The working group's reading of the state act is that habitability standards are left to cities, and it has asked the city attorney to confirm; a narrow, one-room standard with a clear health basis is also harder to characterize as overreach than a broader mandate would be.
The Ask, Restated, With a Route Back
Please place a cooling standard amendment on the committee's April agenda. The working group can provide draft language, the medical examiner's breakdown by district and three residents willing to testify. Contact the working group lead at the address on the attached sheet; we will follow up with your office on 23 February.
References
Bouchama, A., Dehbi, M., Mohamed, G., Matthies, F., Shoukri, M., & Menne, B. (2007). Prognostic factors in heat wave-related deaths: A meta-analysis. Archives of Internal Medicine, 167(20), 2170-2176. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.167.20.ira70009
Pomeranz, J. L., & Pertschuk, M. (2017). State preemption: A significant and quiet threat to public health in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 107(6), 900-902. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303756
Semenza, J. C., Rubin, C. H., Falter, K. H., Selanikio, J. D., Flanders, W. D., Howe, H. L., & Wilhelm, J. L. (1996). Heat-related deaths during the July 1995 heat wave in Chicago. New England Journal of Medicine, 335(2), 84-90. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199607113350203
What the MPH 503 Week 2 assignment asks for
Write a brief of one page for one named decision maker, not a general audience. Put the ask in the first paragraph in a form the reader can grant: schedule a hearing, introduce a bill, fund a line. Follow with the problem in local numbers the reader will recognize, ideally numbers from their own district. Give the evidence that the proposed action works in two or three sentences, with citations. Explain why this body has the authority to act. Name what you are not asking for, to show the request is bounded. Anticipate the strongest objection and answer it. End with timing, explaining why the decision is needed by a specific date. Keep the language plain and the page uncluttered.
How this MPH 503 Week 2 example is built
The sample is set out as a memo to the committee chair from a public health graduate student working with a tenant group. Its first sentence asks for an April hearing. The problem section gives the city's nineteen indoor heat deaths in homes without working cooling, six of them in the chair's district. Evidence comes from the 1995 Chicago heat wave study and a later meta-analysis. A short authority paragraph explains that state law sets a habitability floor that cities may raise. The brief says plainly that it leaves rents alone and covers one room only. It answers the cost concern with window unit prices and utility rebates, and closes by tying the April hearing to a 1 June effective date.
Where the points sit in the MPH 503 Week 2 rubric
Students often lose marks here by writing a short policy analysis, with background, options and a recommendation at the end, when the week asks for a brief that leads with the ask. Others write for everyone, so the brief has no reader in particular and no request anyone can grant. Running past one page is a frequent problem, as is evidence presented as a list of studies rather than one plain claim. Briefs score well when the ask is in the first lines, the numbers are local to the reader, the authority is explained in a sentence or two, the main objection is answered and the timing gives the reader a reason to act now.
MPH 503 Week 2 help: mistakes that cost points
A one-page brief is short, which makes every sentence carry weight, and many students find it harder to write than a long paper. If you share your problem, your decision maker and the action you want, we can help you lead with the request, choose the local numbers that will matter to that reader, explain the authority briefly and answer the objection you most expect. We can also help you trim a draft that has run over one page without losing the evidence. The decision maker, the ask and the final wording of the brief stay your own work.
Get a MPH-503 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 2 instructions with any template your section supplies and the issue you are working on, and a custom example is built to that format and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. Which request is worth making stays yours to settle.
More MPH 503 papers and MPH samples
- MPH 503 Week 1: Advocacy Ask Post
- MPH 503 Week 3: Legal Authority Write-up
- MPH 503 Week 4: Stakeholder and Power Map
- MPH 503 Week 5: Testimony Draft
- MPH 503 Week 6: Coalition Strategy Write-up
- MPH 503 Week 7: Media Advocacy Piece
- MPH 503 Week 8: Advocacy Campaign Plan
- MPH 500 Week 2: Public Health Systems Analysis
MPH 503 Week 2 questions, answered
How is this different from a policy analysis?
An analysis weighs a policy against criteria for a reader who wants to understand it. A brief asks somebody to do something. That changes the order, the length and the tone, so cutting an analysis down produces a poor brief. The clearest sign of the wrong document is a page that explains thoroughly and never requests anything.
Can the brief run to two pages?
Only if your section allows it, and most do not. The length limit is the assignment rather than a formatting preference, since the whole skill is deciding what a busy reader can be given. Where material will not fit, it belongs in references or an appendix rather than in a smaller typeface, which instructors notice.
Do I need to name a real bill?
Name what your assignment supplies or what you have actually read. Where no specific instrument exists yet, describe the kind of change required and say so. Inventing a bill number or attributing a position to a named official is the one error here that goes beyond a grade, and examples written for you never do it.
Where can I find a free MPH 503 Week 2 sample paper?
This page holds the full one-page memo asking a housing committee chair for an April hearing on a rental cooling standard.
How does the MPH 503 Week 2 sample handle the cost objection?
It points out that the rule covers one room, gives local window unit prices and mentions the utility's rebates for landlords.