please answer to this discution. 3 paragraph. 2 cites sources not older than 2015
Analyze the root of public health nursing. Explain its influence on practice today.
The public health nursing profession’s roots are traced back to the 1800s although the road was not easy. It had to define the profession as unique from medicine and nursing when these fields were changing and expanding. In the past years, public health practice was referred to as the health of poor people who are not able to get access to medical care. Lillian Wald coined the term “public health nurse” where she believes that public health nurses are not only looking after sick people but also look at their social and economic issues.
Florence Nightingale trained these first nurses and they were later assigned duties in different geographical areas where Lillian Wald becomes the head of the public health nursing field. Jointly with her classmates, they established the Henry Street settlement house in the lower house of NYC. She noticed that health problems in the home were primarily originating from societal issues. Therefore, she had to channel nursing to the creation of employment, education, sanitation, and recreation.
The origin of public health has influenced modern practice. According to American Public Health Association, the primary objective of public health is to provide adequate healthcare services in the societies. The public health nurses till today are still the guardians of public health. Currently, public health nurses can fight frightening diseases, ensuring the health needs of the communities have been met and fixing the economic climate (Kub et al., 2017). It is their tasked responsibility to attend to the need of the community as a whole since they are frontline in protecting the public. For instance, nurses visiting the community investigating the common causes of illness. By doing so, they will have in mind the effective measures that should be put in place to curb the spread of the diseases. Wald’s vision of incorporating healthcare service provision and solving societal issues of the society is still at work.
