A Career in Public Health Nursing: A Promotional Video for Recruitment and Retention of Public Health Nurses

The New York New Jersey Public Health Training Center (the Center) is one of 14 centers funded by HRSA to bring the expertise of faculty at accredited schools of public health together with the practical experience of leaders in practice. Currently the Center sponsors semi-annual forums for public health nursing educators and practice leaders and participates in development initiatives such as the NY State PH Workforce Task Force. The Center provided $3000 for production of a promotional DVD video for recruiting student nurses to public health and for retaining nurses currently employed. The project was inspired by a series of 4 posters created to “brand” public health nursing produced by PHNs in a collaborative project at the University of Illinois, Chicago Schools of Nursing and Public Health. The NY/NJ video incorporated all 4 posters images, and used language from the posters to frame a recruitment message. Supplemental images were collected by the development team from sources such as websites of governmental agencies and solicited from local counties. Funds paid for services of a professional video editor who assembled the images with voice recordings. The resulting “first cut” attracted the interest of NYC public health nurses. The executive committee of Local 436, representing NYC's public health nurses and epidemiologists viewed the video and allocated $3500 to complete the editing, improve quality of audio tracks, develop titles and credits, and to reproduce and distribute the DVD. It was distributed by mail to all nursing schools in New York and New Jersey, and to county health departments. It has been shown at high school career days. It is available on the Public Health Nursing Exchange, an online forum sponsored by the Center to foster professional communication among NY/NJ public health nurses. Although the goal was to promote public health nursing “specific” to New York/ New Jersey, the video has both urban and rural scenes, and a wide range of nurses, making it suitable for general use. This project demonstrates it is possible to produce promotional materials to support public health nursing recruitment and distribute them widely at relatively low cost.