Key Concepts
Early community public health nurses were involved in influencing health-related policy decisions. However, only in the last two decades has nursing become visible in the political arena.
The community health nurse is one of the few health professionals to realize the scope of health problems affecting large segments of the population; this knowledge is a mandate to action for the caring professional.
By learning the various power bases, the nurse can understand and use power in a positive and productive way.
Policy represents the actions of a government and develops incrementally over time.
Politics is associated with conflicting values, and often multiple interest groups compete for scarce resources.
Four stages of political development in the nursing profession have been identified in order to analyze previous accomplishments and plan future actions.
Local politics may differ radically from one city or county to another; federal and state governments are similar to each other.
The private sector, including nurses, can influence legislation in many ways, especially through influencing the process of writing regulations.
The community health nurse should use the political process as a tool to influence health care policy.
Nursing values, although different from the public’s traditional values, are useful for focusing the policy debate on issues of human rights, individual worth, and caring.
Nursing’s political network encompasses the professional associations with their myriad activities including lobbying, electioneering, and grass-roots political action.
In the international community, nursing’s basic problems and issues are very similar to national issues.
Community health nurses need to be politically active in the community because of community and professional shared values and because of the pervasive role the government has on the impact of health care.
Major strategies for political action include lobbying, electioneering, coalition building, and participating in political networks.
Nurses can access a variety of specialty organizations with expertise in political activism to ensure that nursing’s voice is heard at all levels of government.
The primary goal of the World Health Organization is to attain the highest possible level of health for all people.
International policy affects the United States even though the United States may not have _had direct involvement in establishing the _policy.
Supporting international health policy and programs is important for political reasons.
Laws that affect community public health nursing practice are laws which impact public health resources, services, and programs as well as laws, rules, regulations, and standards focused on nursing itself.