Introduction

Up to this point in your nursing education, you have likely focused heavily on learning how the human body functions when it is healthy and on how to support healing when it is not. Most of your clinical experiences have been in clinics, hospitals, and long-term care settings. Many of you chose nursing because you see yourself in one of those workplaces.

It is possible the COVID-19 pandemic influenced your decision to pursue nursing and to pursue specific types of nursing. You might even have new interest in the intersection of nursing and public health—the role that public health nurses play in promoting the health of individuals, families, communities, and populations, and in responding to public health threats such as a novel airborne respiratory virus.

We hope this text supports your exploration of the field of public health nursing and the unique responsibilities and challenges that come with being a public health nurse. You will be introduced to the entry-level competencies that are expected of a new public health nurse in population-based practice settings such as local public health departments. This fourth edition is guided by an updated set of the Henry Street Consortium entry-level, population-based public health nursing competencies, including a new competency on population health.

For the student nurse, this manual:

• Serves as a tool you can use as you explore the competencies needed to be an effective public health nurse.

• Outlines the public health principles that guide activities promoting the health of individuals, families, populations, communities, and systems.

• Exposes you to public health nursing and to what public health nurses do.

• Encourages awareness of how public health nursing contributes to addressing health disparities and inequities with strategies that improve the well-being of individuals, families, communities, and systems.

For the new public health nurse, this manual:

• Provides an opportunity to orient yourself to the core competencies you are expected to demonstrate as a new public health nurse.

• Offers opportunities for reflection on a range of issues, challenges, and ethical dilemmas that you will likely experience in one way or another during your initial months of employment.

• Encourages you to explore and apply core public health nursing competencies using case studies and evidence from the literature and practice.

For public health nursing faculty and preceptors, this manual:

• Presents a set of entry-level PHN competencies that are consistent with, though not identical to, the following current national standards:

  • Ten essential public health services (Public Health National Center for Innovations, 2020)

  • Public health nursing: Scope and standards of ­practice (American Nurses Association, 2022).

  • The definition and practice of public health nursing (American Public Health Association, Public Health Nursing Section, 2013).

  • Community/Public Health Nursing Competencies (Quad Council Coalition Competency Review Task Force, 2018).

• Provides content that is consistent with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing new domain of population health (2021).

• Offers you a tool to consistently guide your students in the development of core entry-level public health nursing competencies and provide them with a foundational level of knowledge for public health nursing practice.

• Presents chapter narrative case studies, evidence examples, and assignment opportunities to reinforce and apply foundational knowledge of public health nursing to nursing practice.

This manual begins with a description of foundational public health nursing concepts followed by a chapter on ­evidence-based public health nursing interventions. The next 13 chapters are each devoted to a single core competency. The final chapter focuses on the transition from nursing student to practicing nurse. The elements found in each competency chapter are outlined in Table 1.

The appendices include five sections that provide both a guide to practice and a variety of stories about practice. The five appendices are outlined in Table 2.