Population Health Policy Advocacy
Population Health Policy Advocacy
Write a letter to the editor (3–5 double-spaced typed pages) of an academic or professional journal. Your submission should be succinct yet substantive.
Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.
Advocating for new policies is an important aspect of the master’s-prepared nurse. For new policies to be compelling they need to be supported by evidence. Supporting data can be used to illustrate why new policies and interventions are needed to help address a specific health issue. Compelling data can help sway the stakeholders and gain support for your policy.
Population Health Policy Advocacy
Another aspect of advocacy is disseminating new policies and interventions outside of the immediate care environment. This can be done by reaching out to professional organizations as well as academic and professional journals. A letter to the editor is one strategy for disseminating information to a wider audience, and to potentially enlist support throughout the wider professional community.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
- Competency 1: Design evidence-based advanced nursing care for achieving high-quality population outcomes.
- Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
- Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
- Competency 2: Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of interprofessional interventions in achieving desired population health outcomes.
- Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
- Competency 3: Analyze population health outcomes in terms of their implications for health policy advocacy.
- Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.
- Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.
- Competency 4: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
- Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
- Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.
skills and develop programs
Nurses have the opportunity to use their skills and develop programs to keep individuals and communities healthy. Health is complex however, and the nurse needs to possess strong advocacy skills to successfully support a cause or interest. The American Nurses Association’s code of ethics (2015) describes the responsibility of a nurse to include working through and with appropriate stakeholders to advocate for the health of people in and out of the work environment. To be an effective advocate, there are several important abilities a nurse must possess, including problem solving, communication, and influencing others. One way a nurse can advocate to a broader population is through effective letter writing, both to legislators and through the media, such as with editorials and research articles.
Reference
American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/CodeofEthicsforNurses/CodeofEthicsForNurses.html
