Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Barbara Sattler, RN, DrPH, FAAN¹, Brenda Afzal, RN, MS¹, Marjorie Buchanan, RN, MSN¹, Susan Wilburn, RN, MS², nancy Hughes, RN, MS², Anna Gilmore-Hall, RN, MS³, and Karen Ballard, RN, MS⁴. (1) Environmental Health Education Center, University of Maryland School of Nursing, 655 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, (410) 706-1849, bsattler@son.umaryland.edu, (2) Occupational and Environmental Health, American Nurses Association, 8515 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 21910, (3) 1901 N. Moore Str, Health Care Without Harm, 1901 N. Moore Street, Arlington, VA 22209, (4) 1901 N. Moore Street, Health Care Without Harm, 1901 N. Moore Street, Arlington, VA 22209

A new triumvirate of nursing leaders is generating a vision of environmental health as it transforms the profession: redefining its role in environmental health; incorporating environmental health competencies into its practices; developing new collaborations with other environmental health professionals, as well as environmentalists; honing advocacy skills; and raising new voices for environmental health. Through an interdependent set of grants from the Beldon Fund, the American Nurses Association, the Health Care Without Harm Campaign, and the University of Maryland School of Nursing have launched an energetic agenda to prepare and engage nurses in a wide range of environmental health issues. The approaches include educational, practice-based, research, and advocacy/policy activities. Educationally, train-the-trainer programs have helped to identify and support new leaders in this field. Environmental health competencies are being incorporated into nursing subspecialty practice, such as nurse midwifery and public health nursing. A national, on-line survey for nurses to self-report their workplace exposures to potentially hazardous chemicals is a research tool designed to raise awareness and take action. Several nursing organizations, such as the American Nurses Association and the Public Health Nursing Section of APHA, are now adopting environmental health principles to guide their practice and advocacy. And a new website for The Luminary Project was created to extol the work of emerging environmental health nursing leaders and provide meaningful tools for the replication of their work. Through mini-grants, dozens of small projects have been supported nationwide, including those creating environmental health task forces within 10 state nursing associations.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the new roles that nurses are playing in environmental health
• Identify the range of organizations that are engaged in transforming nursing's role in environmental health
• Discuss ways in which to incorporate environmental health concerns into all aspects of public health

Keywords: Environmental Health, Nurses

Related Web page: www.enviRN.umaryland.edu; www.noharm.org; www.ANA.org; www.TheLuminaryProject.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No