Academic Program

This two-week Community and Public Health Nursing Practicum provides learning opportunities for students to apply the principles of public health combined with nursing knowledge and skills to address health promotion, disease and injury prevention, and nursing management of infectious disease and chronic health conditions. Nursing activities will focus on the improvement of health outcomes at the individual, family, community and global level within the context of population-focused practice.

Students will actively engage in community assessment, community planning and community action processes in partnership with faith community and public health nurses in the Kingdom of Eswatini. Students will gain an understanding of the similarities and differences in a country and region very different from Johnson County, Iowa, and have the potential to discover the many community assets and population strengths that exist despite poverty, low literacy, and chronic health conditions such as HIV/AIDS/TB and the health consequences of hunger and water shortages. These health conditions, and the available resources to manage them, vary substantially in comparison with those experienced by populations in Iowa, where priority health problems focus on obesity, prevention and treatment of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, for example. Students will witness how the health of the Swazi people is affected by the political climate, socioeconomic conditions, and cultural factors of their geographic region.

Although this course section will be taught in the Kingdom of Eswatini, there are community/public health nursing principles held in common with all communities in all parts of the world. Students will learn processes of community assessment, trust building and community partnerships, effective community communications, dissemination of culturally informed social marketing of public health messages and methods, mechanisms of building a coalition, methods to sustain public health efforts, and measurement of health outcomes. Students will use a Culturally Informed Community Nursing Practice Process that can be applied in the Kingdom of Eswatini, as well as across other geographic settings and cultures.

This course counts as NURS:3655 Community and Public Health Nursing Practicum