Nurses Improve Their Communities’ Health Where They Live, Learn, Work, and Play

Details

• Personal Author:
  Brewer C ; Cohen S ; Kovner CT ; McCollum M ; Ojemeni MT
• Description:
  Nurses are often recognized for their volunteer efforts following disasters and international humanitarian crises. However, little attention is paid to the activities of nurses who promote a culture of health in their communities through local volunteer work. In this article, we describe nurses' perceptions of how they promote health in their communities through formal and informal volunteer work. Using 315 written responses to an open-ended question included in a 2016 survey of the career patterns of nurses in the U.S., we utilized conventional content analysis methods to code and thematically synthesize responses. Two broad categories of nurse involvement in volunteer activities arose from the participants' responses to the open-ended question, "Please tell us what you have done in the past year to improve the health of your community": 17% identified job-related activities, and 74% identified non-job-related activities. 9% of respondents indicated they do not participate in volunteer work. Job-related activities included patient education, educating colleagues, and "other" job-related activities. Non-job-related activities included health-related community volunteering, volunteering related to a specific population or disease, family-related volunteering, church activities, health fairs, raising or donating money, and travelling abroad for volunteer work. Nurses are committed to promoting a culture of health in their communities both at work and in their daily lives. Leveraging nurses' interest in volunteer work could improve the way nurses engage with their communities, expand the role of nurses as public health professionals, and foster the social desirability of healthful living. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Community Health Services Health Personnel Health Promotion Occupational Health Public Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Community Health; Health Promotion Nursing Workforce Public Health Nursing Nurses; Nursing; Health Care Workers; Community Health; Health Promotion; Public Health;
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1177/1527154417698142
• ISSN:
  1527-1544
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New York ; North Carolina ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  7-16
• Volume:
  18
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20065850
• Citation:
  Policy Polit Nurs Pract 2017 Feb; 18(1):7-16
• Contact Point Address:
  Christine T. Kovner, College of Nursing, New York University, 433 First Ave, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10010, USA
• Email:
  ctk1@nyu.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2017
• Performing Organization:
  Mount Sinai School of Medicine
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice
• End Date:
  20270630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9a063bf26eb04b68a07012934b21bca48b6f794758c02f26f48cb8cb9810b2f0ddc3b7dfaee09128d60c69ff38e9d14fe12deb1bd0574a74366e2591beb39c2e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/248937/cdc_248937_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 136.48 KB ]