Page 80 - MMP-N-NJ CCN 21st Century School Nurse Leadership Book

Key Principle: Community/Public Health

Definition: “Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of families and
communities through promotion of healthy lifestyles, research for disease and injury prevention and
detection and control of infectious diseases. Overall, public health is concerned with protecting the
health of entire populations. These populations can be as small as a local neighborhood, or as big as
an entire country or region of the world. A large part of public health is promoting healthcare equity,
quality and accessibility” (CDC Foundation, 2017).

“Key tenets and responsibilities of public health practiced by school nurses, such as surveillance,
outreach, population-based care, levels of prevention, social determinants of health (including
access to care and cultural competency), and health equity, make up the practice components of
this principle. Healthy People 2020, helps school nurses prioritize assessments and interventions and
provides measurable guideposts that are applicable at the nation, state and local levels” (Meadows-
Oliver & Allen, 2012; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2017b).

PRACTICE COMPONENTS DEFINITION*

The Community/Public Health principle expands the
focus beyond the individual to populations (e.g., school
POPULATION-BASED CARE community) with similar health concerns. Interventions for
school populations are guided by group assessments that
target the student, family, school, and community systems.

Healthy People 2020—the United States’ national health
promotion and disease prevention agenda for populations—
HEALTHY PEOPLE 2020 helps school nurses prioritize assessments and interventions
and provides measurable guideposts that are applicable
at the national, state, and local levels (U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 2017b).

Individual and population-based interventions can be
categorized by levels of prevention: before the health issue
occurs (i.e., primary prevention), when the health issue has
begun but before complications and/or signs and symptoms
LEVELS OF PREVENTION (i.e., secondary prevention), or after the health issue has
occurred (i.e., tertiary prevention). Several of the practice
components relate to the levels of prevention. School nurses
provide care at all three levels but place extra emphasis on
primary prevention.

Health education is an example of implementing primary
HEALTH EDUCATION
prevention.

Other examples of primary prevention: promoting
immunizations, health promotion programming, and
HEALTH PROMOTION advocating for a positive school environment. The activities of
primary prevention overlap with the principle of Leadership’s
components of change agent and advocacy.

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