Nursing theory is not unified, and its manifestations in various fields of nursing are varied. However, the central concepts, which are metapragmatic, retain their general notions in all nursing fields. These concepts include patient, health, nursing, and environment. They are present in public health nursing as well as in other subdivisions concerning human conditions. Nevertheless, in public health, patients and the environment denote wider concepts than in conventional nursing theory.
Public health shifts the perspective on the concept of the patient and the concept of the environment by adding scale and multidisciplinarity to the notions. In nursing theory, a patient is an individual who receives care (Smith, 2020). In public health “strong emphasis on health promotion and community health” is put, which means that the patient is a variety of people or populations (Wood, 2020, p. 51). For example, it might be risk groups whose conditions are life-threatening, so public health care specialists attempt to notify these people about their diagnoses. Next, while the environment is usually viewed in the physical meaning, it includes social and economic factors as well as public health. For example, the context of racism is often viewed as a part of the environment (Cobbinah & Lewis, 2018). Thus, public health is responsible for the health of a population in a variety of environmental factors.
Health care providers are obliged to make the attempts of public health specialists achievable. The more immense public health’ perspective with a larger scope is incorporated into practice via the legal system and the influence of public health organizations. Namely, the recommendations for the enhancement of public health are made known to practitioners who then guide their work according to them. They contact their patients and prescribe care according to the needs of the population for well-being. Finally, they try to influence the environments that impact patients’ health by promoting proper prevention methods and treatment.
Public health is advantageous for society in several important ways. Namely, the benefits of such a perspective are a possibility for the improvement of the well-being of multiple people, a prevention-centered approach, and addressing the global issues rather than minor. Public health recognizes as its patients the whole population with different needs and problems. It formulates goals for decreasing the physical and mental illnesses rate and their consequences for each group of populations. Hence, public health formulates preventive methods that help not only eliminate the existing issues but to not allow new ones to appear. As a result, these specialists treat the conditions holistically and provide care for the whole population instead of only its definite part.
To conclude, the public health perspective on patients and the environment is characterized by amplitude and multifacetedness. Public health specialties address the issues of multiple populations by trying to prevent them. This approach is helpful since it enhances the well-being of larger groups of people by attempting to reduce the effects of the environment and prevent dangerous conditions. As a result, the effect of public health is more global.
References
Cobbinah, S. S., & Lewis, J. (2018). Racism & health: A public health perspective on racial discrimination. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 24(5), 995–998. Web.
Smith, M. (2020). Nursing theories and nursing practice (5th ed.). F. A. Davis Company.
Wood, S. K. (2020). Keeping the nurse in the nurse practitioner. Advances in Nursing Science, 43(1), 50–61. Web.