Community Health Nursing Practice

Community health nursing is a branch of nursing focused on preventative care and managing acute and chronic conditions within that community, which is a group of people who live in the same area or share certain values or characteristics. Community health nursing can include public health, home health, and primary care nursing.

Now, as a community health nurse, you’ll first need to complete a community assessment to better understand the community’s environment, including physical locale, the social systems, and the people who live and work in the community.

You can assess the physical locale by driving around the community and conducting a “windshield” survey, or by walking around the community and completing a walking survey. Your survey can determine a community’s access to resources such as recreation, shopping, and opportunities for socialization. During your survey, you may notice that there are several prominent houses of worship in the community, that the neighborhoods are composed of both single-family houses as well as multifamily dwellings, or the presence of well-maintained parks with open space where children can safely play. You may also notice if there are vacant lots, if there’s a direct bus route to the local grocery store, and the number of fast-food restaurants that are within walking distance of neighborhoods.

Your assessment will also include the community's social systems, which you can accomplish by visiting specific sites, like schools and health care facilities, and by interviewing community members. You can also review data from the local health department to gather health and demographic information and use this information to identify community strengths as well as potential problems. For example, you might notice that there’s been a decrease in local teen pregnancy, but also an increase in sexually transmitted infections, or STIs, in the last year.