| Course | NR 538 Population Health I: Assessment and Analysis of Data |
|---|---|
| Week | 7 |
| Paper type | Priority ranking matrix |
| Length | About 1,120 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | MSN, Population Health |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 538 Week 7
Priority Ranking Matrix: Five Fall-Related Needs Among a Rural County's Older Adults Scored Against Criteria, Weights and a Tie-Break Rule Written on the First Page, Before Any Need Was Scored, and a Tie That the Rule Then Broke
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 538: Population Health I: Assessment and Analysis of Data
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Priority Ranking Matrix: Five Fall-Related Needs Among a Rural County's Older Adults Scored Against Criteria, Weights and a Tie-Break Rule Written on the First Page, Before Any Need Was Scored, and a Tie That the Rule Then Broke
The Rules, Written First
This matrix ranks five needs identified in the falls assessment for the county's older residents. Before any need was scored, the assessment team, a public health nurse, the Area Agency on Aging's program manager and the ambulance service's community paramedic, agreed on five criteria, their weights, a scoring scale and a rule for breaking ties. The rules were written on the first page of the working document and dated. This order matters. Criteria written after a favorite has been chosen will always fit it, and partners who suspect that the scoring was arranged will not support the result.
The method is adapted from the Hanlon approach to priority setting, which rates problems on size, seriousness and the effectiveness of available interventions (Hanlon & Pickett, 1984), with two criteria added for local feasibility and community concern.
Criteria, Weights and Scale
Size (25%). How many older adults in the county are affected. Scored from the assessment data: lift-assist records, hospital discharge data and population estimates.
Seriousness (25%). How likely the need is to lead to hospitalization, loss of independence or death if unaddressed.
Evidence of effective intervention (20%). Whether published evidence shows that an intervention addressing the need reduces falls or their consequences.
Feasibility (20%). Whether the county and its partners could implement an intervention within two years with resources they have or could realistically obtain.
Community concern (10%). How strongly the need was raised in the listening session and follow-up interviews. It carries the lowest weight because the listening session reached only part of the population.
Each criterion takes a whole-number score, 1 at the bottom and 5 at the top. The weighted total is the sum of each score multiplied by its weight. Tie-break rule: if two needs have the same weighted total, the need with the higher seriousness score ranks first; if still tied, the need affecting more people.
The Scores
Table 1 shows the scores for each need.
Table 1
Priority Ranking Matrix
| Need | Size (25%) | Seriousness (25%) | Evidence (20%) | Feasibility (20%) | Concern (10%) | Weighted total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No follow-up after lift-assist falls | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4.45 |
| Loss of community strength and balance classes | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4.45 |
| Older adults living alone with no daily contact | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3.70 |
| Transportation to medical appointments | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2.80 |
| Outdoor and winter falls on farms | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2.60 |
Reasons for the Key Scores
No follow-up after lift-assist falls. Size scores 4: 212 older adults had lift-assist calls last year, 41 of them repeatedly. Seriousness scores 5, because repeat fallers who cannot get up are at high risk of injury and long lies on the floor. Evidence scores 5: a Cochrane review found that exercise programs reduced the rate of falls among older people living in the community by about a quarter (Sherrington et al., 2019), and home assessment and referral after a fall can connect people to such programs. Feasibility scores 4, because the ambulance service has a community paramedic and a data-sharing agreement already exists.
Loss of community strength and balance classes. Size scores 5, because classes could reach any mobile older adult in the county. Seriousness scores 4 rather than 5, because many participants would be at lower risk than repeat fallers. Evidence scores 4, supported by the same review. Feasibility scores 5, because the senior center has space and a peer county runs a similar program that could share its model.
Older adults living alone with no daily contact. Concern scores 5, because it was among the strongest themes in the listening session. Evidence scores 3: social isolation is associated with poorer health in older adults (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2020), but evidence that interventions for isolation reduce falls specifically is limited.
Transportation and outdoor farm falls score lower on evidence and feasibility. Farm falls are serious but affect a smaller, dispersed group, and no tested intervention fits the county's resources.
The Tie and the Rule
The two top needs tied at 4.45. Under the tie-break rule agreed in advance, the need with the higher seriousness score ranks first. Follow-up after lift-assist falls scores 5 on seriousness against 4 for the classes, so it ranks first. Had the rule not been written in advance, the tie would have been settled by preference, and each partner had a favorite: the Area Agency on Aging preferred the classes, which fit its programs, and the ambulance service preferred follow-up, which fits its community paramedic. The rule made the decision without asking anyone to give way. Both partners had agreed to it on the first page, weeks earlier, when neither knew which need it would favor. That is why it was accepted. A tie-break chosen after the tie appeared would have looked, to one partner or the other, like a thumb on the scale, and the partnership would have started its work with a grievance.
The tie also carries information. The two needs are close, and they are complementary: a follow-up program for repeat fallers would need somewhere to refer them, and strength and balance classes are the obvious place. The final report will therefore recommend the first-ranked need as the priority, with restoring the classes as the means of meeting part of it.
Sensitivity of the Ranking
To test whether the ranking depends on the weights, the team rescored with equal weights of 20% each. The two top needs remained first and second, with follow-up at 4.4 and classes at 4.4, again tied and again broken by seriousness. Living alone remained third. If community concern were weighted at 25%, living alone would rise closer to the top two but not overtake them. The top of the ranking is therefore robust to reasonable changes in weights, which gives partners more reason to accept it. The bottom of the ranking is less settled: transportation and farm falls swap places under some weightings. That matters little for the decision, since neither was close to the top, but the report will say so rather than present the full order as fixed.
References
Hanlon, J. J., & Pickett, G. E. (1984). Public health: Administration and practice (8th ed.). Times Mirror/Mosby.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2020). Social isolation and loneliness in older adults: Opportunities for the health care system. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25663
Sherrington, C., Fairhall, N. J., Wallbank, G. K., Tiedemann, A., Michaleff, Z. A., Howard, K., Clemson, L., Hopewell, S., & Lamb, S. E. (2019). Exercise for preventing falls in older people living in the community. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2019(1), Article CD012424. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD012424.pub2
NR 538 Week 7 instructions, in plain terms
Ranking needs is the task this week. Prompts usually ask you to apply a priority-setting method to the needs identified in your assessment, explaining criteria, weights, scores and the resulting order. Write the criteria, weights, scoring scale and a tie-break rule before scoring anything, and date them, so no one can suspect the rules were fitted to a favorite. Explain each key score with evidence from your assessment. Show the calculation. If a tie or close result occurs, apply the rule as written. Test whether the ranking changes under different reasonable weights. Report which parts of the order are firm and which are not. Cite a recognized priority-setting method and evidence for interventions in APA 7.
How this NR 538 Week 7 example is built
The matrix opens with the rules written first and the reason for that order, then names the adapted Hanlon method. Five weighted criteria and a tie-break rule are defined. Table 1 scores five needs and shows weighted totals. A section explains the key scores, drawing on the lift-assist data, a Cochrane review of exercise for falls and evidence on isolation. A section shows the tie between follow-up and classes, the rule deciding it and the partners' competing preferences it settled, and notes that the two needs work together. A sensitivity section rescored with equal weights and found the top unchanged, while the bottom of the order shifted.
Reading the NR 538 Week 7 grading rubric
Priority matrix rubrics usually reward clear criteria and weights, justified scoring, correct calculations, transparent handling of ties and a defensible result. Graders favor matrices in which rules are fixed before scoring, since that protects the process from bias. Explaining key scores with assessment evidence shows that numbers are not arbitrary. A tie-break rule applied as written demonstrates integrity. Sensitivity testing shows whether the result depends on the weights and usually earns analysis credit. Recognizing that closely ranked needs may complement each other shows practical judgment. A readable table and citations to the priority-setting method complete the grade. Where partners helped set the rules, saying so strengthens the case that the result will be accepted.
Common NR 538 Week 7 mistakes, and how to avoid them
A common weakness is a matrix whose criteria or weights appear to have been chosen after the preferred answer was known. Set them first and say so. Another is scores with no explanation, which reads as opinion in numbers. Justify the key scores. Students also ignore ties or close results, or resolve them by preference. Write a tie-break rule in advance. Avoid too many criteria, which dilute each one. Test the result with different weights before presenting it as firm. Do not present the full order as fixed if only the top is stable. Finally, involve partners in setting the rules, since they are more likely to accept a result they helped design.
Get a NR 538 Week 7 example written to your instructions
Send the prompt, the rubric and the matrix template your classroom uses, along with the problems your assessment has been carrying and any method your instructor named. We write a custom NR 538 example to that material and return it inside 24-48h, first one free. If a weighting scheme was set for you, send it and we score inside it.
More NR 538 papers and MSN samples
- NR 538 Week 1: Discussion Naming a Findable Group
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NR 538 Week 7 questions, answered
Do I have to use a named prioritization method?
Only if your section requires one, and prompts differ, so read yours. A published method gives you criteria that somebody else has already defended, which saves argument, while a scheme of your own gives you criteria fitted to the population you assessed. Either is markable. What is not markable is a set of criteria with no source and no definitions, scored as though the numbers arrived from outside the writer.
How many problems belong in the matrix?
Enough that the ranking was a real contest, which usually means four to six. Two candidates make the exercise trivial and ten make the scoring careless. The rows should come from the work already done in the term rather than from a general list of population health concerns, since a problem that appeared in no earlier week has no evidence behind its score.
What if the matrix picks a problem I do not want to write about?
Then either the criteria were wrong or the preference was. Both are recoverable, and the recovery has to happen in the open: change a criterion, say why, and rescore every row against the new version. Quietly adjusting one score until the preferred problem rises is the single easiest thing for a marker to spot, because the winning row is the only one that needed help.
Where can I find a free NR 538 Week 7 sample paper?
The five-need falls priority matrix above is the entire NR 538 Week 7 sample, which anyone may read here. If you need to rank other needs, send us your candidates and evidence and a matrix with rules fixed in advance can be drafted.
Why set NR 538 criteria before scoring?
Because criteria chosen after a favorite is known will fit that favorite, and partners will not trust the result. The sample dates its criteria, weights and tie-break rule before scoring, and the rule later breaks a real tie.