Embedding Community Action in Primary Health Care and Population Health Promotion: A Review of Five Years of Undergraduate Student Practica in Community Health Nursing

Primary health care (PHC) has been recommended as a way to address challenges within the Canadian health care system (Romanow, 2002) and has been endorsed as the most effective way of providing health care to Canadians (Canadian Nurses Association, 2002). Furthermore, the community health nurse's key role in primary health care has been supported by the Canadian Community Health Nursing Standards of Practice (Community Health Nurses Association of Canada, 2002). The population health promotion model (PHPM) has emerged as an approach that integrates the concepts of population health and health promotion and provides a basis for action in community practice (Hamilton & Bhatti, 1996). Thus, these two perspectives form a foundation for the development of Community Health Nursing (CHN) education that is both relevant and timely within the current health care environment. In this presentation, discussion will focus on the integration of PHC and PHPM in on-campus and on-line undergraduate CHN practica in the Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary over the last five years. Students within CHN clinical courses have the opportunity to work in collaborative partnership with community groups and agencies. Using PHC and the PHPM as a basis for the philosophical stance and a community-as-partner model as a guiding framework, students either individually or in groups complete a community assessment and analysis, formulate community diagnoses, develop a plan of action, carry out an intervention, and evaluate the processes and outcomes (Vollman, Anderson, & McFarlane, 2004). Five years of analyzed clinical course data will be discussed in terms of categories of community partners, focus for community action, type of interventions, nature of sustainable outcomes, and benefits and challenges for stakeholders, and illustrated through a compendium of student projects. Finally, the audience will be engaged in a discussion of possible implications for community placement selection and clinical expectations development.