Evaluation of a nursing student health fair program: Meeting curricular standards and improving community members' health.

BACKGROUND: Public health nursing (PHN) is an essential component of baccalaureate nursing education. In order to build PHN competencies, universities must design and operationalize meaningful clinical activities addressing community and population health. Currently, there is a paucity of literature delineating best practices for promoting competency in PHN. AIMS: The purpose of this manuscript is to describe a PHN-student health fair program as a means for meeting undergraduate PHN curricular standards, and to report results of an evaluation conducted examining its effectiveness in improving community member's health knowledge. METHODS: Health fairs were held at community agencies that served the homeless or victims of intimate partner violence. A total of 113 community members that attended a health fair were assessed at baseline and immediate posttest using open-ended questionnaires. The design of the health fairs included a community assessment, intervention, and evaluation flow that followed the nursing process. RESULTS: We report that results from participants surveyed indicated that PHN-student delivered health fairs improved health knowledge among community members in this sample (p = .000). CONCLUSION: Health fairs conducted by PHN students appear to be promising community health promotion and disease prevention interventions that can serve as an effective strategy for teaching PHN student competencies and facilitating engagement with the community.

Using International Videoconferencing to Extend the Global Reach of Community Health Nursing Education.

Travel abroad provides college students with a unique learning experience. When plans to take undergraduate community health nursing students from the United States to Haiti were cancelled due to health and safety concerns, faculty piloted international videoconferencing with a nursing program in Haiti as an alternative. During this semester-long course, students in both countries assessed a local community using the Community as Partner framework and compared findings during videoconferences with their international peers. Despite communication challenges such as language barriers and limited internet access in Haiti, evaluative data suggests that all students valued learning with their nursing student peers in another country. For future international videoconferencing endeavors, especially with under-resourced communities, we provide recommendations in the following categories: 1) Building relationships with a partner school, 2) Technology, 3) Pedagogy, and 4) Facilitating interactions between students.

[Community health nursing: essential education elements].

Community health nursing has undergone significant reform over recent decades in response to ongoing advances in medical technology and increasing national living standards. Taiwan's nursing manpower projections indicate a strong and growing demand for nurses working in primary and tertiary settings. Can our nurses address social trends and face the new challenges of the 21st century? The baccalaureate nursing degree is the minimum preparation for entry-level professionals working in community health nursing in most advanced countries. Significant improvements are necessary in this degree track to improve the quality and quantity of community health nurses. This article introduces the Essentials of Baccalaureate Nursing Education for Entry Level Community / Public Health Nursing proposed by the Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE). It is hoped that nursing schools and community health nurses responsible for professional training in Taiwan will reference the ACHNE proposal and develop appropriate domestic curricula that will form an effective professional development consensus and further advance community care.