The Role of the Community and Public Health Nurse

The Role of the Community and Public Health Nurse
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The Role of the Community and Public Health Nurse
What distinguishes the community and public health nurse role from the other health professionals is that the core roles and functions of the community and public health nurse are performed within a community-based framework. Community-based services are driven by the resources and needs of the community and its neighbourhoods. Unlike other health professionals, public health nurses assess communities everyday whilst working with groups, families, and individuals in the neighbourhoods, homes, workplaces, and schools (Philibin et al., 2010). Moreover, they have the role of providing the leadership in health promotion. They integrate community involvement and knowledge regarding the whole population with clinical, personal understandings of the disease and health experiences of families as well as individuals in the population.
Community and public health nurses also translate and articulate the illness and health experiences of different, usually vulnerable families and individuals in the population to the policy makers and health planners, and help community members in voicing their aspirations and problems (Abrams, 2012). Health promotion is essentially the process in which individuals are enabled to increase control over their health and to improve their health. The core services and roles of community and public health nurses are illustrated in the table below:
Role of the PHN in delivering core services (Philibin et al., 2010)
Health promotionPreventionHealth protectionCreate environments that are supportive
Build healthy public policy
Re-orient health services
Strengthen community action
Develop personal skillsSexual health
Family and reproductive health
Mental health
Food security/nutrition
Prevention of chronic illnessEmergency health
Protection from injury
Communicable diseases
Environmental health
In population-focused nursing practice, the skills and knowledge that a community and public health nurse requires include skills in assessing community needs and assets. They also have skills and knowledge in planning and executing community development strategies combined with an ex...