2025/03/22 by Paula M. Kett, Greg Whitman, Joyce K. Edmonds +6
Health Professions · Nursing · #Nursing Education, Practice, and Leadership #Nursing education and management #Public Health Policies and Education
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.outlook.2025.102385
openalex publication_date 2025/03/22 · crossref created 2025/03/22 · crossref issued 2025/05/01 · crossref published 2025/05/01 · crossref published-print 2025/05/01 · crossref deposited 2025/07/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28 · crossref indexed 2026/07/28
BACKGROUND: There is a need for better public health nursing (PHN) workforce measurement approaches that focus on their functions and activities as well as a need for more data inclusive of PHNs at the federal level. PURPOSE: For this cross-sectional study, we conducted an online survey with nurse officers in the U.S. Public Health Service to describe the demographics and experience of this workforce and to test job function and activity questions. METHODS: We conducted descriptive analyses to characterize the full sample (N = 565). We also stratified the sample into "primarily nonclinical" and "primarily clinical" nurses and compared their responses to function and activity questions. DISCUSSION: Our findings describe a highly educated and diverse UPSHS nursing workforce with wide-ranging responsibilities. Respondents indicated the function and activity questions that accurately described their work, with most reporting Health Promotion and Protection functions (48.7%). Compared with primarily clinical respondents, more primarily nonclinical respondents reported Policy and Advocacy (24.1% vs. 12.2%), Enforcing Laws and Regulations (22.5% vs. 11.2%), and Research (26.0% vs. 16.8%) functions. CONCLUSION: Findings highlight potential opportunities to learn from the USPHS nursing workforce about ways to grow a more diverse nursing workforce and emphasize the utility of function and activity questions in nursing workforce assessments for gaining a deeper understanding of PHNs' roles.