PUBH 6641 Week 11 Final Project Document Example

One Document, One Argument: The Final Applied Project for Free Mercury Checks of Beauty Creams in Eastgate and Riverbend, With the Drift Found in Review Repaired and Each Change Recorded

Student Name

Walden University

PUBH 6641: Applied Project in Public Health

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

One Document, One Argument: The Final Applied Project for Free Mercury Checks of Beauty Creams in Eastgate and Riverbend, With the Drift Found in Review Repaired and Each Change Recorded

Summary

Some skin-lightening and imported beauty creams contain mercury far above the federal limit, and long-term use can cause serious poisoning. No product sold or used in Marlow County, a composite county, has ever been tested. This project proposes a one-year program in which the county health department offers adult women a free and private check of their skin creams for mercury in the Eastgate and Riverbend neighborhoods, follows up every positive result and reports contaminated brands to state regulators. It aims to screen at least 300 creams, measure the local contamination rate and help women with contaminated creams stop using them.

The Problem and the Setting

Mercury is added to some skin creams because it lightens skin. Testing of 549 lightening products bought in several countries found mercury past 1,000 parts per million in about one in every seventeen, and in about one in thirty of those bought in U.S. stores (Hamann et al., 2014). Federal cosmetic rules allow mercury only as an unavoidable trace below 1 part per million, with a small carve-out for eye-area preservatives (21 C.F.R. § 700.13). In 2019, a Sacramento woman was poisoned with methylmercury after seven years of twice-daily use of an imported cream that tested at 12,000 parts per million, and she never regained the ability to talk or look after herself (Mudan et al., 2019).

Eastgate and Riverbend have about 41,000 residents, 38% born outside the United States, with large communities from Mexico, Somalia, the Philippines and Nigeria. Small groceries and beauty supply shops sell imported personal care products. The record shows three poison center calls involving cosmetic mercury in five years and, in a neighboring county's market pilot, 7 of 46 creams above the federal limit. It does not show how many local women use such creams or how many local products are contaminated. The project is designed to fill that gap.

Scope

The project serves women aged 18 and older in the two neighborhoods who currently or lately applied lightening creams or beauty creams bought abroad. It excludes retail enforcement, which belongs to regulators; screening of children, which requires clinical assessment; biological testing, which requires a clinician; and other neighborhoods and product types, which exceed current capacity. Men who bring creams are not turned away.

Objectives

1. Before the end of September, check no fewer than 300 creams across a dozen or more events and partner sites.

2. By October 31, give the health officer and the state the percentage of creams over 1 part per million, with its 95% confidence interval.

3. By December 31, reach nine in ten or more women whose creams screen positive, within two weeks, with confirmation, advice and a written referral.

4. By December 31, report all brands confirmed above the federal limit to the state health department.

5. Come March 31, seven out of every ten women with a confirmed contaminated cream, or more, say at their three-month call that they have put it away for good.

Logic Model

Resources (a part-time environmental health specialist, two community health workers, a borrowed portable analyzer, state laboratory confirmation, partner sites, translated materials and replacement moisturizers) support activities (training, screening events, private results conversations, confirmation, referral, reporting and follow-up). These produce outputs (creams screened, a data summary, follow-up contacts and brand reports) and are intended to lead to outcomes (women knowing their results, the local rate being known, women stopping use and regulators acting). The model, built on the Kellogg Foundation's guide, separates what the department controls from what it can only influence (W. K. Kellogg Foundation, 2004).

Stakeholders

Ten parties are mapped by power and interest, plus a column on what helping would cost each of them, an approach drawn from Bryson (2004). The state laboratory and health officer can stop the project; community associations, the health center and churches bring women in; shop owners may lose sales and are approached before the first event with a clear explanation that the project tests creams brought by women, not products on shelves.

Work Plan and Resources

Work is arranged around 12 hours a week of the specialist's time and 8 to 12 hours of each health worker's, with events concentrated between May and September and timed to two-week analyzer loans. Three resources remain unsecured: confirmatory testing beyond 20 samples, Tagalog and Yoruba translation and replacement moisturizers. The plan states how the project proceeds if each stays unsecured.

Evaluation

The evaluation turns each objective into a question, an indicator, a data source, a responsible person and a date, following a six-step public health evaluation framework (Milstein & Wetterhall, 2000). It is descriptive, relies on self-report for stopping use and does not measure exposure. Results reach state regulators no later than a month after screening ends and to community leaders in plain language in each language.

Changes Made After Review

A peer review of a classmate's project prompted a consistency check of this one. Three drifts were found and repaired.

Table 1

Record of Changes

Note. Changes recorded during the final consistency review.

Limitations

The project measures products, not people, so it cannot show reduced exposure. It counts only the women who come to events, and those who stay away may differ. Self-reported stopping may be overstated. And the contamination rate will describe creams brought to events, not all products sold locally.

Conclusion

The project is small, specific and measurable. If local creams prove contaminated, it will have found and helped women at risk and given regulators evidence to act. If they do not, it will have provided reassurance and a local figure where none existed. Either result is useful to the women of Eastgate and Riverbend and to the county.

References

Bryson, J. M. (2004). What to do when stakeholders matter: Stakeholder identification and analysis techniques. Public Management Review, 6(1), 21-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719030410001675722

Hamann, C. R., Boonchai, W., Wen, L., Sakanashi, E. N., Chu, C.-Y., Hamann, K., Hamann, C. P., Sinniah, K., & Hamann, D. (2014). Spectrometric analysis of mercury content in 549 skin-lightening products: Is mercury toxicity a hidden global health hazard? Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 70(2), 281-287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2013.09.050

Milstein, B., & Wetterhall, S. (2000). A framework featuring steps and standards for program evaluation. Health Promotion Practice, 1(3), 221-228. https://doi.org/10.1177/152483990000100304

Mudan, A., Copan, L., Wang, R., Pugh, A., Lebin, J., Barreau, T., Jones, R. L., Ghosal, S., Lee, M., Albertson, T., Jarrett, J. M., Lee, J., Betting, D., Ward, C. D., De Leon Salazar, A., Smollin, C. G., & Blanc, P. D. (2019). Notes from the field: Methylmercury toxicity from a skin lightening cream obtained from Mexico, California, 2019. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 68(50), 1166-1167. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6850a4

Use of Mercury Compounds in Cosmetics, 21 C.F.R. § 700.13 (2024).

W. K. Kellogg Foundation. (2004). Logic model development guide. https://wkkf.issuelab.org/resource/logic-model-development-guide.html