Preface
Long Description for Figure 1
Assessment includes the following. Assess and monitor population health. Investigate, diagnose and address health hazards and root causes. Policy development includes the following. Communicate effectively to inform and educate. Strengthen, support, and mobilize communities and partnerships. Create champion and implement policies, plans and laws. Utilize legal and regulatory actions. Assurance includes the following. Enable equitable access. Build a diverse and skilled workforce. Improve and innovate through evaluation, research, and quality improvement. Build and maintain a strong organizational infrastructure for public health.
Guiding principles for this text focus on community health nursing roles, competencies, challenges, responsibilities, and opportunities for impact that are best considered through the lens of social justice. Social justice promotes the concept that everyone has the right and opportunity to reach their highest level of health and well-being. Quality health care access, education, safe housing, safe living, and safe work environments are the premise for a just society. Our shared belief is that this lens should apply throughout all aspects of professional nursing, including community health. We believe the commitment to social justice is necessary to guide policy, inform actions, and evaluate the allocation of resources to reduce health disparity and level the playing field for all persons when it comes to health. The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics Provision 9 calls special attention to the role of nursing in integrating the principles of social justice and health policy.[1] Likewise, a core principle supporting the information in this text is an unyielding position that social justice principles should guide all actions necessary to bring about systematic change at all levels of our society and in all domains.
This book responds to the American Nurses Association call and petitions readers to ground their practice in the ethics and values that protect human rights, promote equitable health policy, and reduce disparities.
A Note to Students
We wrote this book with you in mind. It is imperative that as a future nurse, you recognize your unique opportunity to bring about change to improve the health of individuals, families, communities, and populations. We hope you will use the knowledge gained from this book, the expanse of your nursing education, and your life experiences to do the active work of improving access to care, inclusion, justice, fairness, and equity and will support the rights of all to fully participate in their communities and move toward self-actualization.
Our desire is that as you read this book, you will become enlightened and consider ways you can engage in facilitating change from your current sphere of influence to the level of state and federal policy development. All nurses must be willing to do this and be able to do so. This textbook highlights the strategic role that community and public health nurses have in influencing large-scale change that can revolutionize health care in a way that results in improved health and health care for the state, the nation, and the world. We support you as you continue this critical work for change. Run on!
A Note to Educators
Our shared goal for this project is to provide a community health open educational resource that supports student access to high-quality free learning materials.
We represent schools from various locations across the state of Virginia that recognize the need for open educational resources for nursing faculty and students.
If you are a nursing educator, you might ask yourself, “Why should I use this book, and why now?” This textbook aims to fill a gap in the equitable distribution of knowledge by providing an up-to-date, free, comprehensive community health textbook to help reduce students’ costs of obtaining a nursing degree. Our belief in social justice extends to our work as educators. Either this text can be used in its entirety or chapters can be separated and used individually or in groups. By providing openly available educational material, we are taking action that makes higher education more accessible to all individuals.
To help educators interested in using this book, we have included Appendix A, which maps the content of this book to the AACN Essentials.[2] You can also access ancillary resources, such as a teaching guide, at https://bit.ly/community-nursing-resources. If you create materials to accompany this text in class, such as slide decks or assessments, we recommend you submit them to vivapub@gmu.edu to be stored alongside the text for future adopters.
About Open Educational Resources
Information and resources for this collaborative textbook come from a variety of reputable sources, including governmental organizations (e.g., World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state health departments), premier health-related journals, health textbooks (as cited), other open educational resources (OERs), and the authors’ nursing faculty expertise.
What is an OER? An OER consists of course materials that are made available to students at no cost; OER materials are also available to faculty to use, remix, and alter to best suit the needs of their classrooms. Created under an open license, such as the Creative Commons license we’ve chosen for this text, OERs invite faculty to achieve their pedagogical goals through materials that their students can access and they can tailor to meet their own needs.
- American Nurses Association. (2016). The nurse’s role in ethics and human rights: Protecting and promoting individual worth, dignity, and human rights in practice settings. https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/official-position-statements/id/the-nurses-role-in-ethics-and-human-rights/ ↵
- https://www.aacnnursing.org/essentials ↵