Nurses as Change Agents in the Community

The discussion assignment provides a forum for discussing relevant topics for this week on the basis of the course competencies covered.

For this assignment, make sure you post your initial response to the Discussion Area by the due date assigned.

To support your work, use your course and text readings and also use the South University Online Library. As in all assignments, cite your sources in your work and provide references for the citations in APA format.

Start reviewing and responding to the postings of your classmates as early in the week as possible. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ initial postings. Participate in the discussion by asking a question, providing a statement of clarification, providing a point of view with a rationale, challenging an aspect of the discussion, or indicating a relationship between two or more lines of reasoning in the discussion. Cite sources in your responses to other classmates. Complete your participation for this assignment by the end of the week.

In the chapter, “How Community-Based Organizations Are Addressing Nursing’s Role in Transforming Health Care,” the authors describe the community as the focus of advocacy action for change. They list a series of questions that help community teams develop organizing principles to guide their interventions, and the aim is to attack social determinants of health to make community change.

Suppose a community team identifies lack of access to exercise modalities as a public health issue. If the team were to determine that pedestrian walkways need to be constructed, discuss at least two factors that would facilitate the development of the walkways and two that would hinder the development. For the hindrances, discuss ways that the team might work to overcome those hindrances.

Continue to read daily from one of the policy briefs that are included in your weekly readings list. POLITICO Pulse is a daily briefing from POLITICO, and the Kaiser Health News Morning Briefing is a daily briefing from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Both focus on health care. Either one will keep you abreast of what is happening in health care policies and politics.

In addition, subscribe to the “HealthCetera” podcast and listen to the podcast weekly. This is a production of WBAI, free speech radio of Pacifica Foundation Radio in New York City. Diana Mason and Barbara Glickstein are founders and codirectors of the Center for Health Media Policy (CHMP). Both are recognized as experts in media, nursing, health, and health policy. They have a longstanding relationship as producers and moderators of HealthCetera, a live, award-winning radio program on public radio and iTunes. They are bloggers for Disruptive Women in Health Care and for the American Journal of Nursing (AJN). The CHMP is an interdisciplinary initiative for advancing the health of the public and healthy public policies through media, research, education, and public forums. Listen to the podcast throughout the course and think on the topics that are discussed, especially as they relate to how we advocate for issues of importance in this contemporary political environment.