Stanhope Ch. 1 Foundation of Public Health Nursing

1. In 1988, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report on the future of public health and its mission that defined public health as: a. what public-private partnerships do to treat vulnerable populations. b. what the government does to ensure that vital programs are in place. c. what the U.S. Public Health Service does to prevent disease, promote health, and deliver services. d. what society does collectively to ensure the conditions in which people can be healthy. - ANS: D In 1988, the IOM's report stated that public health is "what we, as a society, do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy." Consequently, the mission of public health is "to generate organized community effort to address the public's interest in health by applying scientific and technical knowledge to prevent disease and promote health." This clearly places the emphasis on the desire of the population and community to ensure access to services that foster the health status of the overall community through the equitable distribution of resources addressed to community problems that affect health. 1. Public health nursing specialists are interested in which of the following topic(s)? (Select all that apply.) a. Educational materials for individuals with HIV/AIDS b. Evaluation of an outreach program for at-risk pregnant teenagers c. Community subpopulations with high rates of type 2 diabetes d. New technologies to monitor diabetes e. Prevalence of hypertension among various age, race, and gender groups - ANS: B, C, E Public health specialists often define problems at the population or aggregate level as opposed to the individual level. At the population level, public health specialists are usually concerned with more than one subpopulation and frequently with the health of the entire community