Clearing the Air: Smoke-Free Housing Policies, Smoking, and Secondhand Smoke Exposure Among Affordable Housing Residents in Minnesota, 2014-2015.

Introduction: During the past 30 years, local and state tobacco use control laws in the United States have helped reduce smoking prevalence and exposure to secondhand smoke, but progress among low socioeconomic populations has been slow. Implementing smoke-free housing policies in affordable housing may help address this issue. The purpose of our study was to assess how such policies affect smoking rates and exposure to secondhand smoke among residents of affordable housing.

Public Health Nursing Activities: Visible or Invisible?

Objective: To promote visibility of public health nurses (PHNs), this study identified public health nursing activities and explored PHN perceptions of the impact of their activities on the health of the communities they serve.

Design And Sample: Two surveys with questions focusing on PHN activities were made available electronically. Following the initial survey, the second survey had more detailed questions about PHN activities, including time spent and frequency of activities as well as open-ended questions.

Public health nursing competency instrument: scale reduction and reliability of factors.

Objectives: To reduce the number of items of the Public Health Nursing Competency Instrument (PHNCI) and to report the psychometric properties of the abbreviated instrument.

Design And Sample: The 193-item PHNCI was administered via an online survey tool. A national sample of 2,269 public health nurses was recruited from 25 states.

Development of the public health nursing competency instrument.

This paper describes the development and initial testing of an instrument to measure population-based public health nursing competencies. Although multiple lists of public health competencies exist, literature review did not elicit a valid instrument that could measure changes in public health nursing competency over time. The public health nursing competency instrument, consisting of 195 measurable activities organized in the framework of the nursing process, was developed.