Course Description
Students explore the community nursing context based on the concepts examined in the previous leadership course, focusing on promoting health from a Canadian primary healthcare perspective. This course emphasizes nurses’ partnerships with individuals, families, groups, and communities to promote mutually identified health goals. Students explore topics in global health, including epidemiology, community and international disasters, and the effects of these on the health of Canadians.
Course Content
Primary health care and population health
Prevention:
- Individuals, families, groups, and communities
- Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention
Partnerships:
- Individuals, families, groups, and communities
- Capacity building, identifying strengths
Community:
- Community as context and culture
- Community as resource
- Healthy communities
Socio-environmental approach to health promotion:
- Directed toward action on the determinants of health
- Diverse, complementary approaches
- Facilitating effective community participation
Chronicity:
- Trends and issues
- Lived experience
- Self care
- Supportive care
Client-centered health education:
- Individuals, families, groups, and communities
- Theoretical perspectives on teaching and learning
- Principles of teaching and learning
- Teaching processes with a focus on prevention (e.g. solution focused counseling).
- Teaching across the lifespan, with diverse client populations and in a variety of contexts
- Health literacy
Epidemiology:
- Epidemiological models and sources of data
- Populations experiencing disadvantage
- Role of epidemiology in nursing research and practice
Emergency preparedness:
- Public safety and emergency preparedness in Canada
- Roles and responsibilities of government agencies in emergency preparedness
- The role of nurses in community disasters
Global health:
- Health for all movement and globalization
- International initiatives
- Effect on Canadians
Health informatics:
- Digital health and nursing informatics
- Information and knowledge management
- Professional accountability
- Information and communications
- Digital literacy
- Use of data standards in health improvement
Learning Activities
Faculty will facilitate the student's integration of nursing theory and promote the development of critical inquiry, clinical reasoning and judgment through learning activities such as lectures, group discussions, client-based scenarios, and using electronic resources.
Means of Assessment
This is a graded course, and the means of assessment are consistent with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. The instructor's course outline will be available to students by the first class and list the evaluative components of the course.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Apply strategies for promoting population health including interprofessional and intersectoral collaboration;
- Critically reflect on issues associated with the social determinants of health, health inequity, and access to services for underserved groups and communities or those experiencing disadvantage, and consider implications for nursing practice;
- Explain the utility of epidemiology in health promotion;
- Examine community disaster planning and the nurse’s role in responding to community disasters;
- Explore global health issues, the effect of global health on the health of Canadians, and the role of nurses in contributing to global health;
- Discuss issues and trends associated with health informatics and digital health, including information and knowledge management, and use of data standards in health improvement.
Textbook Materials
The instructor's course outline will be available to students by the first class and list the required textbooks and materials that students must purchase.