Page 1 of 23
PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT EXAM 2026 – 2027
LATEST VERSION QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
2026 EDITION
A nurse is studying the high infant mortality rate in a community with a mean
household income below the poverty level within the larger community served by
her hospital. She looks into the problem further and finds that the only prenatal
care clinics available that accept Medicaid or offer a sliding scale payment system
are not located within the community and require taking three different busses to
get there. The lack of access to affordable prenatal care is an example of:
Health inequity.
Which of the following programs was specifically designed to work toward optimal
health for all Americans?
Healthy People
A nurse working in an urban nurse-managed health clinic located in a neighborhood
with a high poverty rate notices that the patients she is seeing with type 2 diabetes
are having difficulty controlling their A1C levels. She suspects that they may be
having difficulty accessing their medications due to cost. What would be her first
step in addressing the problem?
Conduct a focused assessment that includes a patient survey and an evaluation of
factors associated with access to medication
A nurse is performing an assessment of a very economically diverse community
and realizes that while comparing income to health outcomes, the nurse must be
careful to:
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Recognize that income and outcomes exist on a scale and look across the entire
spectrum.
A nurse is looking at reasons why members of a community are more likely to die
from heart disease. The nurse finds several studies that suggest that social factors,
such as ____, are more important than behavioral choices.
Poverty
During a lecture on health disparities, a student asks the instructor how
communities with great access to health care can still have poor health outcomes.
How should the instructor respond?
Social determinants of health determine how people respond to health threats and how
they access preventative care
A nurse is working with a group of refugees who recently arrived in the United
States after suffering conflict-related violence in their country. The nurse knows
that they should be assessed for:
-Communicable diseases.
-Injuries related to torture or sexual assault.
-Mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
A nurse is assessing a young mother who lost her job. She has no way to support
her family and has found herself living on the streets because she doesn't have any
other family in the area. Which of the following should she do first?
Help her find shelter at the community shelter for women and children.
A community nurse-managed clinic has seen an increase in the number of patients
who have immigrated to the U.S. from Central America who are experiencing poorer
outcomes than other patients. A nurse working in the clinic decides to take a
multiple determinants of vulnerability approach to help understand possible
underlying factors for this population. Using that approach, she would take into
account all but which of the following as primary factors?
Health literacy
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A public health nurse (PHN) is starting a study of different populations in the
community to see which groups have faced marginalization and to what degree.
The PHN is looking for evidence that:
A group has been treated as if they are not important or of little consequence to the rest
of society.
A nurse is caring for a young man who is squatting in an abandoned factory a mile
away from the clinic. The nurse documents that he is experiencing what type of
homelessness?
Primary
A nurse received funding to start a mobile health unit to serve the health needs of
the homeless population. In addition to a having a good understanding of
noncommunicable diseases, what other specialty areas would be helpful in caring
for this population?
-Treatment of substance use disorders
-Treatment of communicable diseases
-Treatment of mental health disorders
A nurse is working at a primary care clinic on the Mexican-Californian border. The
nurse frequently takes care of refugee families when they first arrive in the United
States. When meeting with a new family, the nurse makes sure to inform them that
they are eligible for which of the following services?
Housing and food support
The maternal-child nurse who is fluent in Spanish is working at the public health
department located in a "sanctuary city". She is conducting a home visit with a
young mother from Northern Triangle of Central America who arrived in the U.S. in
2017 and is now staying with her brother who is a U.S. citizen. The mother is very
frightened and states that she fled her country because of the violence she and her
children has experienced. She fears that they will not survive if they go back. The
mother is eligible to apply for what status?
PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT EXAM 2026 – 2027
LATEST VERSION QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
2026 EDITION
A nurse is studying the high infant mortality rate in a community with a mean
household income below the poverty level within the larger community served by
her hospital. She looks into the problem further and finds that the only prenatal
care clinics available that accept Medicaid or offer a sliding scale payment system
are not located within the community and require taking three different busses to
get there. The lack of access to affordable prenatal care is an example of:
Health inequity.
Which of the following programs was specifically designed to work toward optimal
health for all Americans?
Healthy People
A nurse working in an urban nurse-managed health clinic located in a neighborhood
with a high poverty rate notices that the patients she is seeing with type 2 diabetes
are having difficulty controlling their A1C levels. She suspects that they may be
having difficulty accessing their medications due to cost. What would be her first
step in addressing the problem?
Conduct a focused assessment that includes a patient survey and an evaluation of
factors associated with access to medication
A nurse is performing an assessment of a very economically diverse community
and realizes that while comparing income to health outcomes, the nurse must be
careful to:
, Page 2 of 23
Recognize that income and outcomes exist on a scale and look across the entire
spectrum.
A nurse is looking at reasons why members of a community are more likely to die
from heart disease. The nurse finds several studies that suggest that social factors,
such as ____, are more important than behavioral choices.
Poverty
During a lecture on health disparities, a student asks the instructor how
communities with great access to health care can still have poor health outcomes.
How should the instructor respond?
Social determinants of health determine how people respond to health threats and how
they access preventative care
A nurse is working with a group of refugees who recently arrived in the United
States after suffering conflict-related violence in their country. The nurse knows
that they should be assessed for:
-Communicable diseases.
-Injuries related to torture or sexual assault.
-Mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
A nurse is assessing a young mother who lost her job. She has no way to support
her family and has found herself living on the streets because she doesn't have any
other family in the area. Which of the following should she do first?
Help her find shelter at the community shelter for women and children.
A community nurse-managed clinic has seen an increase in the number of patients
who have immigrated to the U.S. from Central America who are experiencing poorer
outcomes than other patients. A nurse working in the clinic decides to take a
multiple determinants of vulnerability approach to help understand possible
underlying factors for this population. Using that approach, she would take into
account all but which of the following as primary factors?
Health literacy
, Page 3 of 23
A public health nurse (PHN) is starting a study of different populations in the
community to see which groups have faced marginalization and to what degree.
The PHN is looking for evidence that:
A group has been treated as if they are not important or of little consequence to the rest
of society.
A nurse is caring for a young man who is squatting in an abandoned factory a mile
away from the clinic. The nurse documents that he is experiencing what type of
homelessness?
Primary
A nurse received funding to start a mobile health unit to serve the health needs of
the homeless population. In addition to a having a good understanding of
noncommunicable diseases, what other specialty areas would be helpful in caring
for this population?
-Treatment of substance use disorders
-Treatment of communicable diseases
-Treatment of mental health disorders
A nurse is working at a primary care clinic on the Mexican-Californian border. The
nurse frequently takes care of refugee families when they first arrive in the United
States. When meeting with a new family, the nurse makes sure to inform them that
they are eligible for which of the following services?
Housing and food support
The maternal-child nurse who is fluent in Spanish is working at the public health
department located in a "sanctuary city". She is conducting a home visit with a
young mother from Northern Triangle of Central America who arrived in the U.S. in
2017 and is now staying with her brother who is a U.S. citizen. The mother is very
frightened and states that she fled her country because of the violence she and her
children has experienced. She fears that they will not survive if they go back. The
mother is eligible to apply for what status?
