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Public Health Nurse

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The main aim of health care professionals in the health care industry is to prevent diseases, prolong life, and above all is to promote good health through informed choices, organized efforts by all individuals in a given society or community. In order for these professionals to achieve this, then they have to conduct daily health analysis of the population which they deal with. The purpose of this paper is to trace the history of public health nursing and the impacts of nursing as a medical field.

History of Public Health Nursing

Public health nursing as a practice in the United States of America is traced back to the year 1893 when Lillian Wald, a nurse by then, established Henry Street Settlement in New York City. As a pioneer of public health nursing, Lillian Wald placed nurses in public schools, she advocated for women rights, civil rights, immigrant rights, labor, and children rights. In short Lillian Wald encouraged all citizens to be responsible and above all to be humanitarian especially when it comes to other people’s rights. Apart from provision of healthcare, Henry Street Settlement that was established by Lillian Wald provided instructions and social services to all citizens who came to the institution. By the year 1913, Henry Street Settlement had 3,000 members and 92 nurses offering a number of effective, innovative, recreational, and educational social services (Kulbok & Glick, 2014).

As aforementioned, the main aim of public/community health is to promote good health by preventing diseases thus prolonging one’s life. The introduction of this public health nursing by Lillian Wald has led to a significant change in the public health nursing as well as the standards of practice in the healthcare industry. Apart from providing medical services, healthcare professionals more so the nurses engage themselves in provision of education among other services to the public. The idea here is to enlighten members of the society on some of the preventive measures that will help prolong their lives, which is engaging themselves in hygienic activities that will reduce chances of getting exposed to a number of diseases.

The role of the nurse in public health

For more than 100 years, public health nurses in the United States of America have been developing strategies which have helped them and the other health care professionals to respond to existing and emerging public health issues. The two main populations that are served by nurses are: population-of-interest and population-at-risk. Population-of-interest refers to a group of people who are essentially healthy, but there is an urgent need of some of implementation of some of the factors that will improve or protect their health. On the other hand population-at-risk refers to a group of people with a common risk factor or to a group of people who are exposed to a risk posing a threat to their health (Lewenson & Nickitas, 2014).

In handling the above mentioned groups of populations’ nurses use different intervention programs. One such program is primary prevention whereby resiliency and protective factors are used so as to reduce exposure and susceptibility to risk factors. With this program, prevention is implemented before the problem develops. Secondly is secondary prevention which is implemented once a problem has been identified. This program is used for populations-at-risk at early stages. Lastly is tertiary prevention whereby the existing problems are stopped so as to restore the victim to his or her optimal level of functioning. With these three programs, individuals privacy is of great concern, thus nurses should seek the consent of the patient in all these three levels of intervention (Lewenson & Nickitas, 2014).

Conclusion

It is quite evident from this essay that the practice of public health nursing in the United States of America is traced back to the year 1893 when Lillian Wald established Henry Street Settlement in New York City. Public health nursing plays a vital role not only in the United States of America but also in the other parts of the globe. Apart from provision of health care services, nurses are involved in humanitarian activities. Lastly, the three main intervention programs that are used include: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Reference

Kulbok, P. A., & Glick, D. F. (2014). “Something Must Be Done!”: Public Health Nursing Education in the United States From 1900 to 1950. Family & community health, 37(3), 170-178.

Lewenson, S. B., & Nickitas, D. M. (2014). Nursing’s history of advocacy and action. Policy and Politics for Nurses and Other Health Professionals, 1.