Epidemiology in Nursing - Free Article Example

Introduction

The article selected for this review assesses whether epidemiology has an important role in nursing. The author of the article, Whitehead (2000), defines epidemiology as a scientific discipline that entails the assessment of health-related elements in a given population that is well defined. Epidemiology offers a useful way to assess the health of a population and the prevalence of preventable conditions. Specifically, Whitehead (2000) sought to determine the extent to which epidemiology was being used in nursing at the time, the challenges that the use of epidemiology posed to nurses, and the avenues that nursing can use to contribute to the area of epidemiology.

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Relevance

Other authors agree with Whitehead that epidemiology has a lot of relevance in planning, rationalizing, prioritizing and formulating health care and health promotion strategies. In Britain for example in the 19th century, John Snow through epidemiology studied the outbreak of Cholera in 1850 in London. He was able to relate the outbreak to a communal water pump in Broad Street. He then removed the pump which attributed to the cases of cholera dropping and ultimately ending. This finding and others had a major effect on public health movements and early public health acts of 1848 and 1875. Another example is the Clean Air Act of 1956 in London, where increased deaths of residents over winter were linked to increased concentrations of Sulphur Dioxide from burning fossil fuel products.

In the nursing angle, Florence Nightingale used epidemiology principles to understand the causation of ill health in British Soldiers. Doll and Hill’s episodes of epidemiology research showed and proved the link between smoking and Lung cancer. The usage of epidemiology in nursing is at a shadowing effect because of the limited literature nursing has. Similarly, when reports are written many nurses hardly notice the epidemiology stance used in a case. Epidemiology in nursing is hence limited and confined to doctoral programs and researchers.

Widespread

In nursing, epidemiology is widespread, but utilizing the methodology in their studies many nurse researchers do not imply this in their reports. Hence nurses use epidemiology in practice but do not document it in reports as evidence. It is, therefore, possible for some of the nurses not to know that they applied the epidemiology formulae in their investigations.

The rare application of epidemiology in nursing might also be attributed to the fact that the term and language of epidemiology are not used by nurse researchers. Another reason for the rarity could be the overlap of epidemiological research and quantitative research approaches. Epidemiology is also a tried and tested model of quantitative research that gives the rigorous study of real-life situations. The relationship between epidemiology and quantitative research is that its studies are often dominated by the notion that studies are required to be objective and scientific. Consequently, epidemiology could be seen as a large quantitative discipline with a wide array of designs at its disposal.

Conclusion

Epidemiology is, therefore, a key tool in the formulation and planning of national to local health policy. The nursing profession is an active part in determining and planning health policy. Therefore the link between epidemiology and nursing tend to directly affect client care regimens. Nursing curricula can therefore directly benefit from using epidemiology. Therefore it can be concluded that there is a place of epidemiology in nursing.

References

Whitehead, D. (2000). Is there a place for epidemiology in nursing?. Nursing Standard (through 2013), 14(42), 35. Accessed on 8th September at
http://search.proquest.com/openview/76308c4a0229b1ad78fcc96a241edc95/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=30130.