204580 Water as an exemplar thoughout an undergraduate community health nursing course

Wednesday, November 11, 2009: 11:15 AM

Jeanne M. Leffers, PhD, RN , Community Nursing, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dartmouth, MA
Background and Issues: In an interdisciplinary course in sustainability studies, water was selected as an exemplar as both a resource and potential public health problem. This led to the development of an educational initiative using water as the key integrating principle for the study of community/public health nursing.

Description: Water as an exemplar was threaded throughout the course syllabus in order to highlight the importance of water to health, its relationship to community assessment, particular issues related to vulnerable populations, the need for protection of water sources in disaster planning, as a mode of communicable disease transmission, as a source of toxic exposure and as a diminishing resource for the world population. Finally, efforts to engage student nurses in a campaign for safer water can sustain the focus on this important resource.

Lessons learned: Innovations such as using water as a theme for course planning and presentations can engage students in broader public health agendas.

Recommendations and future plans:

Recommendations are to broaden the integration of water as an exemplar for pubic health into the undergraduate nursing curriculum in order to highlight the importance of this threatened resource for human health. Finally, efforts to engage student nurses in a campaign for safer water can sustain the focus on this important resource.

Learning Objectives:
Describe at least two threats to health from safe water. Identify 4 content areas where the community health nursing faculty can use water as an exemplar for innovative teaching.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to be an abstract Author because I am a faculty member in public health nursing and regularly present at APHA.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.