Answer for NURS 8310 WEEK 1 BLOG POPULATION HEALTH AND EPIDEMIOLOGY THEN AND NOW
The scope and practice of population health are changing from preventive health, educational, and social services to broader and enhanced methodologies to investigate the population’s health. Such appraisal tools include income maintenance, social security, socioeconomic and political determinations, evidence-based medicine, and environmental and risk factors through epidemiological approaches (Montez et al., 2021). Population health focuses on eliminating diseases and injuries and intersecting the factors such as educational, environmental, behavioral, and socioeconomic characteristics that affect the population’s health. It emphasizes the health outcome and how it is distributed within a group. Population health gears on preventing diseases, maintaining hemostasis, and promoting the well-being of the people, not just the individual (Wilson et al., 2023).
Epidemiology is a medical science and public health branch that explores and studies every factor determining the presence or absence of disease and disorders and their impact on society and the economy. It promotes population health by identifying disease etiologies and initiating preventive measures (National Institute of Deafness and Communication Disorder, 2011). Epidemiology enhances the population’s health by majoring in outcomes most important to patients and populations through integrating public health research with stakeholders and policymakers to generate more effective policy, monitor, evaluate, and implement scientific knowledge that promotes and advances peoples’ health (Windle et al., 2019).
Role of nurses in early population health
Nurses have a long history and evolutionary philosophy of care extending to population health through assessing and managing a patient’s physical, psychological, social, and biological well-being. Mary Seacole, one of the earliest contemporaries, was involved in population health by providing therapies, ventilation, and nutrition, as well as collecting and analyzing their patients and their environmental data during the cholera and yellow fever outbreak in the 1850s. The data she collected assisted in improving the British hospitals (Wilson et al., 2023).
Advancing population health
Nurses can promote the health of the group of individuals by assessing and identifying issues negatively impacting population health and initiating interventions. Nurses can positively impact the population through advocacy on social determinants of health in reducing disparities (Ariosto et al., 2018).
References
Ariosto, D. A., Harper, E. M., Wilson, M. L., Hull, S. C., Nahm, S., & Sylvia, M. L. (2018). Population health: A nursing action plan. JAMIA Open, 1(1), 7-10. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamiaopen/ooy003
Montez, J. K., Hayward, M. D., & Zajacova, A. (2021). Trends in U.S. Population Health: The Central Role of Policies, Politics, and Profits. Journal of Health and Social Behavior.. https://doi.org/10.1177/00221465211015411
