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Public Health Nursing

The purpose of this project is to investigate the practice, activities, priorities and education of public health nurses [PHNs] in five California counties. As defined by the American Public Health Association, “public health nursing is the practice of promoting and protecting the health of populations using knowledge from nursing, social and public health sciences…The focus of public health nursing is not on providing direct care to individuals in community settings.” Whether public health nursing in practice accords with this population-focused conceptualization of the profession is not clear.

In this study, we sought to systematically evaluate the scope of public health nursing practice in California today. The survey, which was distributed to all PHNs in five different county public health departments, investigated the types of interventions performed by PHNs, the frequency with which these interventions were performed, PHN ratings of the importance of the interventions and PHN perceptions of educational preparation for these interventions.

The questionnaire included items on PHN demographics, education, and employment. Based on the model developed by Keller et al., the bulk of questions asked the PHN staff to rate how often they perform specific interventions, which were classified into three levels: the individual-family level, the community level and the system level. Managers and directors received the same list of interventions but were asked to rate the importance of each type of intervention for public health nursing practice and the educational preparation of the PHN staff for these interventions.

Publications:
The final report is under review and will be published soon.

Project Staff:
Kevin Grumbach, MD, Principal Investigator
Len Finocchio, PhD, Project Director
Janet Miller, RN, Research Associate
Beth Mertz, MA, Analyst

Funding:
National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, Bureau of the Health Professions, Health Resources and Services Administration