Cornerstone Documents, Milestones, and Policies: Shaping the Direction of Public Health Nursing 1890-1950

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Kub ◽  
Pamela Kulbok ◽  
Doris Glick
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Nursing Leadership ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Public Health Nursing ◽  
Public Health Nurses ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Health Nursing

The interplay of policy, milestone events, and cornerstone documents was critical in the evolution of the specialty of public health nursing (PHN) from 1890-1950. Using our contemporary lens, this article examines PHN development from an historical perspective, including events and milestones driving growth in the early 20th century. Some of the challenges faced by our founding public health nursing leadership are not unlike challenges we face today. In 1950, Ruth Hubbard, a former leader in the National Organization of Public Health Nurses and Director of the Visiting Nurse Society of Philadelphia, spoke of the value of examining the past to forge a new future. This article calls for contemporary public health nurses to act upon the lessons learned from the past, to strengthen the renewed focus on prevention, to develop policies that impact population health, and to foster a vision that will guide us into the future.

Cornerstone Documents, Milestones, and Policies: Shaping the Direction of Public Health Nursing 1950-2015

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Kulbok ◽  
Joan Kub ◽  
Doris Glick
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Planning ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
Public Health Nursing ◽  
Community Health Planning ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Health Nursing ◽  
Post War

Ruth Hubbard, a public health nursing (PHN) leader in 1950, offered a timeless comment, “To each age comes its own peculiar problems and challenges, but to it also comes the necessary vision and strength” (p. 608). Similar to the 1950s, from 1950 to 2015 unique healthcare and workforce issues continued to arise calling for public health nurses to respond with vision and strength. In Part Two of a three-part series on PHN history, we examine seminal documents, events, and policies that influenced practice. We begin by considering the time period 1950 to 1975, and then discuss healthcare transitions; social activism and community health planning; and concerns from the years 1975 to 2000 and 2000 to 2015. These milestones reflected challenges of emerging chronic diseases, re-emerging infectious diseases, immigration and terrorism, as well as post-war prosperity and improvements in health care. As in the early 20th century, response to challenges included periods of expansion and recession. We conclude by considering the past as prologue, discussing prospects for present and future PHN.

scholarly journals Development and content validation of a measure to assess evidence-informed decision-making competence in public health nursing

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0248330
Author(s):  
Emily Belita ◽  
Jennifer Yost ◽  
Janet E. Squires ◽  
Rebecca Ganann ◽  
Maureen Dobbins
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Health Nursing ◽  
Public Health Nurses ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Informed Decision Making ◽  
Response Process ◽  
Validity Assessment ◽  
Content Coverage ◽  
Health Nursing

There are professional expectations for public health nurses to develop competencies in evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) due to its potential for improved client outcomes. Robust tools to assess EIDM competence can encourage increased EIDM engagement and uptake. This study aimed to develop and validate the content of a measure to assess EIDM competence among public health nurses. A four-stage process, based on measure development principles and the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, was used to develop and refine items for a new EIDM competence measure: a) content coverage assessment of existing measures; b) identification of existing measures for use and development of items; c) validity assessment based on content; d) validity assessment based on response process. An EIDM competence measurement tool consisting of EIDM knowledge, skills, attitudes/beliefs, and behaviour items was developed using conceptual literature and existing measures (Evidence-Based Practice Competency Tool and Evidence-Based Practice Beliefs Scale) to address limitations of existing EIDM tools identified from the content coverage assessment. Item content validity index ratings ranged from 0.64–1.00. Qualitative themes from validity assessment based on content and response process included word changes to improve clarity, reducing item redundancy, separating multi-component items, and ensuring items reflect nursing role expectations. Upon determining its reliability and validity, there is potential for the EIDM competence measure to be used in: public health nursing practice to identify competence gaps and strengths to facilitate professional development activities; in research to support development of strategies to build EIDM capacity; and for curriculum planning and development across nursing education programs.

scholarly journals Lessons Learned

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 2333794X1557408
Author(s):  
Amanda Phelan ◽  
Michaela Davis
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Public Health Nurses ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Comprehensive Service ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Interactional Processes

The public health nurses’ scope of practice explicitly includes child protection within their role, which places them in a prime position to identify child protection concerns. This role compliments that of other professions and voluntary agenices who work with children. Public health nurses are in a privileged position as they form a relationship with the child’s parent(s)/guardian(s) and are able to see the child in its own environment, which many professionals cannot. Child protection in Ireland, while influenced by other countries, has progressed through a distinct pathway that streamlined protocols and procedures. However, despite the above serious failures have occurred in the Irish system, and inquiries over the past 20 years persistently present similar contributing factors, namely, the lack of standardized and comprehensive service responses. Moreover, poor practice is compounded by the lack of recognition of the various interactional processes taking place within and between the different agencies of child protection, leading to psychological barriers in communication. This article will explore the lessons learned for public health nurses practice in safeguarding children in the Republic of Ireland.

Exploring Perceived Enablers and Barriers to Social Marketing Use in Public Health Nursing

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 100-112
Author(s):  
Kristin Knibbs ◽  
Lynnette Leeseberg Stamler
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Social Marketing ◽  
Group Process ◽  
System Level ◽  
Nominal Group ◽  
Public Health Nursing ◽  
Public Health Nurses ◽  
Health Nursing ◽  
Health Managers

Public health managers' perceptions of enablers and barriers to social marketing use among public health nurses were examined. Employing qualitative, action research methods, this study incorporated focus groups using nominal group process and group discussion. Eleven public health managers from large urban, small urban, and rural Canadian public health departments participated. Content analysis was conducted on the focus group transcripts, and trustworthiness was strengthened through independent review by participants and subject experts. Several enablers to social marketing use were identified in the areas of educational preparation of nurses and the nature of public health nursing practice. The majority of barriers to social marketing use related to human and financial resources at the system level. In addition, we identified as imperative that managers at those levels responsible for budgetary planning understand the principles of social marketing more fully if they are to be expected to support its use. Social marketing has the potential to positively influence the health behavior of populations. However, if public health nurses and other health-promotion professions are to incorporate this health-promotion strategy more effectively into their practice, issues related to its use must be addressed.

Lessons Learned From Expansion of a Public Health Nursing Doctorate in Nursing Practice Program

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 230-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan G. Tipton ◽  
Patricia M. Speck ◽  
Trimika L. Bowdre ◽  
Pamela D. Connor
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Nursing Practice ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Public Health Nursing ◽  
Health Nursing

Community/public health nursing faculty's knowledge, skills and attitudes of the Quad Council Competencies for Public Health Nurses

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 427-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara L. Joyce ◽  
Monica Harmon ◽  
Regina Gina H. Johnson ◽  
Vicki Hicks ◽  
Nancy Brown-Schott ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Nursing ◽  
Public Health Nurses ◽  
Health Nursing

Exit from the Regime of Life Control: Biopolitics, Anticipatory Risk and the Excess of Experience

Somatechnics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 412-433
Author(s):  
Niamh Stephenson ◽  
Dimitris Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Culture System ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Democratic Regime ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Ordinary Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Everyday

In its early 20th century materialisation, risk was calculable and these calculations were primarily based on assessments of the past. By the end of the century, risk was increasingly considered to be fundamentally incalculable and it has become the object of the work of anticipation. This paper elucidates this shift by examining three regimes of life control. The Life/Culture System pervades early 20th century cultural and political thinking: working with the vitalism of life promises a better future. Following WWII, life's vitalism, creativity and potential and are viewed with suspicion. The State is valorised as the guarantor of an objective, accountable and democratic regime of life control. Biopolitics comes to the fore; risk is called forth. Today, there is a renewed interest in life's inherent plasticity, in controlling life by recombining life. Efforts to work with free-floating and incalculable risk signal a new regime of control: the Emergent Formation of Life . However, something is commonly neglected here: the domain of the everyday. This paper argues that the Emergent Formation of Life regulates life by inscribing emergent recombinant practices into people's everyday experience. Exit from the Emergent Formation of Life takes place on same terrain – immanent, ordinary experience. An analysis of shifts in public health efforts to contain infectious disease and of the everyday experience of life beyond population health illustrates this argument.

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