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Nursing Theory and Public Health Science: Is Synthesis Possible?
Author(s) -
Hanchett Effie S.,
Clarke Pamela N.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
public health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.471
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1525-1446
pISSN - 0737-1209
DOI - 10.1111/j.1525-1446.1988.tb00552.x
Subject(s) - public health nursing , public health , nursing , occupational health nursing , health education , medicine
The American Public Health Association (APHA) and the American Nurses' Association (ANA) have gone on record to define public health nursing as a synthesis of knowledge (APHA) and practice (ANA) from nursing and public health. If this synthesis is to be consistent with nursing, knowledge will have to be congruent with the concepts of nursing's metaparadigm. Disease is not included within the concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing. The focus of the public health tradition is reflected in the concepts of the epidemiologic model (agent, host, environment). Disease and its prevention are the focus of public health science. Reformulation of concepts from public health to be consistent with concepts of person and environment, replacing the concept of illness with that of health, and using methods for study of aggregates are strategies for achieving a synthesis of these two bodies of knowledge.