Yes we can! Eliminating health disparities as part of the core business of nursing on a global level.

Nurses in the 21st century are being called to rise to new levels of practice, including a more influential leadership at senior levels of policy development. Decades of research, good will, and a revolutionary civil rights movement have not resolved the world's staggering health outcome disparities. Nursing has a solution: Many of the most troubling disparities are amenable to effective intervention by the world's nurses through their clinical and policy work. The author challenges nurses to imagine the impact on global health if the elimination of disparities is the core goal of nursing for the 21st century. Moving from individuals and communities to systems levels, nurses must be versed in a range of system-level vital signs that affect policy development including economics, demographics, and access to care. Setting our sights on the elimination of health disparities offers a rallying point around which nursing can coalesce and set human health on a new and more equitable course.