Educating for the public's health: Clinical prevention and population health in nursing education

The Institute of Medicine has been one of numerous bodies to recommend that health care professionals receive education in public health to be more effective participants in the public health system. Since 2002, representatives from eight health professions education associations have met as the Healthy People Curriculum Task Force to help improve public health education in their respective curricula. The Task Force specifically addressed Healthy People 2010's objective 1.7 “Increase the proportion of schools of medicine, schools of nursing and health professional training schools whose basic curriculum for health care providers includes the core competencies in health promotion and disease prevention.” They developed the Clinical Prevention and Population Health Curriculum Framework in 2004 (revised in 2009). This framework of subjects that are relevant across clinical professions has been implemented differently within the various professions.

In nursing, the framework has been incorporated into two critical curriculum documents developed by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing: The Essentials for Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice and The Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Practice Nursing. These documents have been widely adopted by the over 720 Baccalaureate and Higher Degree programs in Nursing and are used as evidence of the use of national nursing standards during the accreditation process. In addition, the framework has been integrated into the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties Nurse Practitioner Competencies for the Practice Doctorate.