Public Health Nursing Resources

Cornerstones of Public Health Nursing

Public Health Nursing Practice:

• Focuses on entire population
• Reflects community priorities and needs
• Establishes caring relationships with the communities, families, individuals and systems
• Grounded in social justice, compassion, sensitivity to diversity, and respect for the worth of all people, especially the vulnerable 
• Encompasses mental, physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and environmental aspects of health
• Promotes health though strategies driven by epidemiological evidence
• Collaborates with community resources to achieve those strategies, but can and will work alone if necessary
• Derives its authority for independent action from the Nurse Practice Act

Minnesota Department of Health, Center for Public Health Nursing, Office of Public Health Practice, Community Health Division, 2004

Quad Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations

The Quad Council is a partnership of four public health nursing organizations - the Public Health Nursing Section of the American Public Health Association; the Council on Nursing, the Primary Care Nursing and Long Term Care section of the American Nurses Association; the Association of Community Health Nurse Educators; and the Association of State and Territorial Directors of Nursing. Recent council activities have focused largely on the effects of changes in the health care delivery system and its resulting impact on nursing education.

Public Health Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice 2007

May be purchased at: http://nursingworld.org/books/pdescr.cfm?CNum=15 (exit DHS)

Public Health Nursing Competencies (PDF, 170 kb) 
Tenets of Public Health Nursing (Word, 25 kb)
Core Public Health Functions (PDF, 77 kb)

The work of Wisconsin's public health system is described by three core functions that are defined in Chapters 250 (PDF, 48 kb) (exit DHS) and 251 (PDF, 42 kb) (exit DHS), Wis. Stats.  The three core functions are Assessment, Policy Development, and Assurance.

Linking Education and Practice (LEAP) for Excellence in Public Health Nursing Project   

Susan J. Zahner, UW-Madison School of Nursing, received funding from HRSA in October 2006 to support this project through June 2009. The purpose of the LEAP Project is to improve competency for public health nursing practice in a changing public health system by educating public health nurses, student nurses, and nursing faculty in the knowledge and skills required for providing population-based, culturally competent public health nursing services. For more information contact your Regional Public Health Nurse Consultant.

Public Health Essential Services

The Ten Essential Public Health Services describe the public health activities that should be undertaken in all communities. The Core Public Health Functions Steering Committee developed the framework for the Essential Services in 1994. This steering committee included representatives from US Public Health Service agencies and other major public health organizations. The Essential Services provide a working definition of public health and a guiding framework for the responsibilities of local public health systems. The ten nationally recognized Essential Services and their definitions as defined in the state's health plan, Healthiest Wisconsin 2010 are:

1. Monitor health status to identify community health problems
Monitor and assess a community's health status. Identify community  assets and threats to health and determine current and emerging health needs.
2. Identify, investigate, control, and prevent health problems and environmental health hazards in the community
Use health laboratories and other resources to investigate disease outbreaks and patterns of environmental health hazards, chronic disease and injury. Identify relationships between environmental conditions and the public's health. Develop and implement prevention and intervention strategies.
3. Educate the public about current and emerging health issues
Promote and engage in healthy behaviors and lifestyles by making health information available in a variety of formats, styles, languages, and reading levels so it can be effectively communicated to the diverse people in Wisconsin. Regularly share and discuss current and emerging health issues with policy makers and decision makers throughout the state (such as health care providers, elected officials, and agency and department leaders).
4. Promote community partnerships to identify and solve health problems
Collaborate with community groups and individuals (including those not traditionally considered connected to "health care") to address local and statewide determined health and environmental issues. Provide needed infrastructure support to build and maintain inclusive viable partnerships. Develop strategies for assessing and engaging the full range of individual and community assets to improve healthy.
5. Create policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts
Provide the leadership to drive the development of community health improvement processes, plans, and policies that are consistent throughout the state but address local needs and conditions.
6. Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and insure safety
Efficiently and effectively enforce state and local laws and regulations that protect and promote the public's health.
7. Link people to needed health services
Provide education, outreach, case-finding of people outside the system, referral, care coordination, and other services that promote health that help people better use the public health and health care services to which they have access.
8. Assure a diverse, adequate, and competent workforce to support the public health system
Lead and support efforts to improve the quality, quantity, and diversity of health professionals in the state. Promote the development of professional education strategies and programs that address state and local health needs.
9. Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility and quality of personal and population-based health services
Regularly evaluate the public health system's performance, processes, and outcomes to provide information necessary to define accountability, allocate resources, reshape policies, and redesign services.
10. Conduct research to seek new insights and innovative solutions to health problems
Develop partnerships with institutions, colleges, vocational and technical colleges, and universities to broaden the range of public health research (to include, for example, issues and communities that were historically ignored, and emerging issues that need attention). Conduct timely scientific analysis of public health issues. Engage testing of innovative solutions at the state and local levels.

When developing the state's health plan, Healthiest Wisconsin 2010, the health plan steering committee felt strongly that Wisconsin had two additional essential services to describe the work that public health systems in Wisconsin assume to achieve "healthy people in safe and healthy Wisconsin communities.

The two additional Wisconsin Essential Services are:

11. Assure access to primary health care for all
Seek out and develop creative approaches to improve access to primary care for all people, especially those who confront economic, linguistic, cultural, geographic, and other barriers.
12. Foster the understanding and promotion of social and economic conditions that support good heath
Raise awareness of social and economic conditions that affect the public's health. Promote conditions that improve the health of a community. Engage broad community partnerships between private, nonprofit, public, and voluntary sectors to confront these issues in order to have a healthy community. Foster conditions that allow families and neighborhoods to nurture and protect children.

In March of 2006, Wisconsin strengthened the commitment to public health by enacting 2005 Wisconsin Act 198, creating Section 4. 250.03(1)(L) (PDF, 20 kb) (exit DHS) of the statutes, incorporating the Essential Services into public health planning, services, and functions

If you have any questions, e-mail Jamie LaBrasca at the Northern Regional Office.