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Armenia M. Williams, DPA, RNC, FNP, Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing, Georgia State University, 6235 Rockland Road, Lithonia, GA 30038, 404-651-4274, awilliam@gsu.edu
Public health nurses of the future will focus more and more on environmental health concerns with the clients and populations that they serve. Environmental health policies protect populations in varied arenas: air and water quality, food safety, regulations related to hazards and toxic substances, traffic safety, and attempts to prevent disparity through environmental justice. Nursing education includes such environmental health issues in public health nursing courses. In one baccalaureate nursing program, a health policy course provides opportunites for students to analyze the population impact of environmental health policy legislation and learn how to apply policy advocacy skills. Students in this course participate in a variety of learning experiences that allow them to apply policy analysis in their assignments. The teaching-learning strategies are: community assessment of environmental health conditions in a geographic locale, journaling about their legislative tracking experiences at state and nationla levels, Web based discussion board participation, creative projects that integrate Internet and library data collection with interviews of environmental health experts, tracking of policy legislation, and documentation of application and analysis of environmental issues at the local level. Criteria for each assignment focus on parameters for the expected activity, the level of integration of content with application skills, and select group participation experiences. Students are evaluated by both faculty and group assignment peers. Such applied population focused activities prepare students to be advocates for the environmental health of communities in addition to prevention of such health risks for individual clients.
Learning Objectives: After attending this session, the participant should be able to
Keywords: Environmental Health, Health Risks
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Handout (.ppt format, 85.0 kb)