Study Guide
Population Focused Nursing - ✔✔Foundations of Practice
Introduction - ✔✔Renewed interest public health and in population-focused health care in the
United States
New need for public health nursing:
-time and opportunity challenge
-growing costs
-changing U.S. demography
-bioterrorism
-epidemic prevention
Population-focused approach
Prevention emphasis
What is Health? - ✔✔Definition of Health
-Health, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a "state of complete physical,
mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
-"...what we, as a society, do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be
healthy."
Perceptions of Health
,Measures of Health
-Health as a Continuum
-Illness-wellness continuum
-population health and the care continuum
-mental health continuum
Factors Influencing Health
-Biophysical: age, gender, genetics
-Behavioral: smoking, diet, alcohol, exercise, risk taking
-Psychosocial: stress management, self efficacy, self esteem
-Societal: social networks, geography/environmental, socioeconomic status
-Environmental: air, water, city vs. country side, lead exposure, factory exposure
-Health Systems: access to resources
Public Health Practice - ✔✔-Foundation for healthy population
-Solid history of preventive improvements
-Institute of Medicine Report 2012: emphasis on funding public health services, emphasis on
population-based prevention
CDC: Top Ten Public Health Achievements of the 20th Century - ✔✔-Immunizations
-Motor Vehicle Safety
-Control of infectious disease: quarantine, understanding how and why diseases spread
-Safer and healthier food supply
-Healthier mothers and babies: prenatal care
,-Family planning: Spacing births
-Fluoridation of Drinking Water
-Reduction of tobacco use
-Declines in deaths from heart disease and stroke
-Workplace safety
Determinants of Health - ✔✔-The range of social, ecological, political, commercial and cultural
factors that influence health status
-Complex and interrelating factors that contribute to a person's current state of health and their
chances of maintaining good health and becoming ill or injured
-Social determinants are conditions in which people live, their income, social status, education,
literacy level, home and work environments, support networks, gender, culture, and the
availability of health services
Upstream vs. Downstream
*Do not worry too much about the chart* - ✔✔Upstream:
Policy and Programs
-Corporations and other businesses
-Government agencies
-Schools
Social inequities:
-Race/ethnicities
-Gender
-Immigration status
, -Sexual orientation
Midstream:
Physical environment
-Housing
-Land use
-Transportation
-Residential segregation
Behavior
-smoking
-nutrition
-physical activities
-violence
HEALTH CARE AND SERVICES
Downstream:
Disease and injury
-Infectious disease
-Chronic disease
-Injury
Mortality:
-Infant mortality
-Life expectancies