Bringing Healthcare Justice to the Front Line: Integrating Environmental Health into Nursing Practice and Educatio

Environmental health hazards are often insidious, and generally poorly understood. Emerging research suggests that environmental hazards may be the ultimate threat to human health.  Nurses occupy a unique position in health care and are often the initial and sometimes the only, point of contact for people seeking health care.  Nurses have the opportunity to make important contributions to the health of individuals and communities through recognition and prevention of environmental illnesses, injuries and exposures. This session will highlight strategies for the incorporation of environmental health in both practice and education settings for nurses. First, the session will offer a model of best practices involving a pilot program at a Migrant and Community Health Center to help improve the care for pregnant migrant farmworker women who work and live in areas where environmental hazards such as pesticides, lead and heat exposures are ubiquitous. This initiative evolved out of requests from nurses and other clinicians wanting to address a growing concern for birth defects following severe birth defects in 2004 and 2005 in babies born to three migrant farmworker women who resided in the same labor camps and harvested crops from the same fields. The partnership was unique in its focus on perinatal care services offered by certified nurse-midwives. The session will also examine strategies for the incorporation of the environmental health competencies for nurses recommended by the Institute of Medicine by emphasizing innovative applied approaches in the undergraduate and graduate nursing education settings.