Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116042

Judith Hays, RN, PhD, School of Nursing, Duke University, Trent Drive, DUMC 3322, Durham, NC 27710, 919-286-5617, hays0001@mc.duke.edu, Marie Lynn Miranda, PhD, Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, PO Box 90328, Durham, NC 27708, and Jeffrey Davis, BS, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, PO Box 90328, Durham, NC, NC 27708.

The Children's Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI) is working with the Duke University School of Nursing to systematically incorporate issues of environmental health into the Nursing School curriculum. Faculty at both the School of Nursing and the Nicholas School of the Environment are collaborating to expand the role of environmental health within formal coursework. We are also developing a complementary community outreach project.

The environmental health curriculum provides a relevant academic context for nursing students to integrate issues of environmental health research into their training. CEHI and the Nursing Faculty are designing a curriculum that brings together literature on existing research, inter-disciplinary contributions, and emerging topics in environmental health.

The outreach project represents an opportunity for students to bridge the gap between classroom and community. Focusing on issues relating to the built environment, nursing students work with community members, churches, community organizations, clinics, and local schools to document observable factors in the built environment that could contribute to specific environmental health outcomes. Introducing geographic information systems (GIS) to nursing curricula, CEHI will collaborate with students to incorporate GIS as a tool in community outreach as well as environmental health research. In this way, nursing students have a conceptual framework for integrating environmental health into clinical practice, as well as an innovative tool for understanding community-level components of public health.

Learning Objectives:

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• Participants will learn how to identify intra-institutional relationships for developing advanced curricula in environmental health. (
• Participants will learn strategies for designing outreach projects for nursing students that emphasize partnerships with community groups, schools, faith-based organizations, local governments, and local health departments. (
• Participants will learn how to integrate technological innovations, such as the use of GIS, into nursing curricula.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.