Global and Community-Based Nursing

Course Description

This course explores the factors that impact the health of individuals, communities, and populations at the local, national, and global levels. Issues including public health, environmental health, emerging infectious diseases, and chronic illness will be explored, while incorporating societal and cultural issues.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:

1. Explain health and development within a global health context. (PLO)
2. Demonstrate an understanding of global demographic and health determinants. (PLO)
3. Identify global health challenges and issues. (PLO)
4. Utilize the process of critical thinking to develop strategies for dealing with social and ethical dilemmas in delivering healthcare in low and middle resource settings. (PLO)
5. Discuss the major communicable and noncommunicable disease burdens impacting global health. (PLO)
6. Discuss programmatic approaches to specific global health issues. (PLO)

Welcome: Global and Community-Based Nursing

This subject introduces you to the foundational principles of epidemiology and the processes utilized to perform a health assessment on a community as “client.” Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease in populations. Today, public health science of epidemiology has made major contributions to the understanding of all possible factors that contribute to health and disease in all its forms. This understanding makes up the framework for the practice of nursing in public health. This topic will focus on basic epidemiological models that nurses use to assess the dimensions of health in a community. What do you already know about assessing aspects of health in a community setting? You will apply the nursing process steps of assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation to a community. The Community Health Nurse’s assessment creates an understanding of the community at the individual, family, and group levels in order to solve identified problems. Tools that are utilized to study a community include Windshield Surveys, data from Healthy People 2030, data from sites such as City-Data.com, and local hospitals Community Assessments.