Public Health Nursing
Public health nursing has a long and storied history. In England in1859, Florence Nightingale organized London into areas, each with a nurse assigned to be responsible for the health of the people in the area. In the United States, Lillian Wald was the nurse to take on the public welfare. In New York City, she established a settlement in which nurses lived and worked in the same neighborhoods. At first, these nurses were taking care of poor people who were sick. However, Wald learned that there were reasons these people were sick, societal problems that threatened public health, including poor sanitation, lack of education, lack of employment, and other similar problems. She invented the term "public health nurse." At the time, in the late 1800s, hospitals trained all nurses.
Visiting nurses continued to provide nursing care for people sick at home. This turned into home health nursing. Public health nursing was something different. Both volunteer and government agencies were involved in delivering health care to the poor. Things like immunization and tuberculosis control were done both for individuals and for the welfare of everyone.
Nursing education moved out of hospitals into colleges in the last part of the 20th century. For a career in public health, a bachelor's degree in nursing is considered essential. Nurses getting bachelor's degrees have courses in epidemiology and environmental health, public health science subjects that they will need to go on in public health nursing. Public health nurses are encouraged to pursue advanced degrees.
"Primary Prevention" is a key phrase in public health nursing. Ideally, public health nurses should be able to prevent diseases and injuries. In fact, they work together with other professionals such as epidemiologists and public health physicians to try and work on the most pressing problems in their areas. They may often function in a teaching capacity, giving information out about healthy habits and health problems such as smoking. They may be working in their community to make it a healthier place, talking about pool safety, driving safety, and drinking water safety, for example.
Public health nurses might be found working at job sites, where they might be called occupational health nurses. They might work in local government offices, where they manage cases, typically of infected individuals with communicable disease problems or other clusters of diseases like lead poisoning. They also work in local clinics treating patients with no money or health insurance. Funding for public health nurses is very fragmented, as is the system under which they function, varying from place to place.
There has been a trend away from this type of public health nursing back to the role of protecting the health of the public.
Some new areas of public health nursing include working on bioterrorism planning and emergency preparedness planning. Right now there is a great demand for public health nurses. If you are interested, the best thing to do is to get your BSN, looking for a school that includes public health in its curriculum. You may find a job right out of school. Or you may decide to pursue a master's degree or doctorate, because there is so much to learn in this field.
The American Public Health Association (APHA) is the group for all public health providers including nurses that help to make and change policy. State public health nurses' groups often join this organization. They are keeping public health issues in full view. In 2009, that includes being prepared for the swine flu H1N1.
Even though public health nursing is an old profession, with today's public health threats, it can be an exciting specialty for a nurse.
Published: 2009-10-14
