Nursing, Health, and the Environment
by Barbara Sattler, RN, DrPH, FAAN
In early December 2008, a group of nursing leaders representing a range of nursing organizations gathered in Oracle, Arizona to launch a new configuration of nurses who are interested in the relationship between the environment and human health and how it relates to their individual nursing practices and the nursing profession as a whole. On the heels of the newly established Environmental Health Principles for Nursing, this group developed a strategic plan for the integration of environmental health into nursing education (basic, advanced and continuing), nursing practice, research, and advocacy/policy work. The end-of-meeting product was a strategic plan that will help to guide the work of a newly formed cadre of nurses who are committed to engaging the nursing profession in environmental health.
There was a collective recognition that many of the symptoms and diseases that we are seeing are related directly or indirectly to environmental exposures in our homes, workplaces, schools, and communities – increases in asthma, autism, neurological disorders, cancers. The nurse researchers at the conference pointed out the importance of better understanding gene-environment interactions. In addition to understanding the implications of these issues for clinical practice, the nurses agreed that they must be advocates for the clients and communities they serve and engage in local, state, and national environmental health policy development.
In an era when nurses are in short supply, it is critical that we maintain our own health, along with the health of our fellow employees, patients and the community. As such, hospital-based nurses are contributing to the greening trends that are reducing exposures to potentially toxic yet common exposures in hospitals via healthier cleaners and disinfectants, safer methods of pest management, and eliminating and reducing the use of unhealthy plastics, in addition to reducing well-known risks posed by latex-containing products, chemotherapeutic agents, and radiation. Several nursing leaders in attendance at the meeting discussed the tactics and successes they employed in shifting their hospitals to more sustainable, healthier and safer practices through environmentally preferable purchasing, selection of locally and sustainably grown foods, and effective waste management. The basic waste-related tenets of "reduce, reuse and recycle” have their own nursing spin as nurses have encouraged the use of reprocessed materials and products, discouraged extra packaging, and learned to recycle not only paper and plastic, but blue wrap (in the operating room), small batteries, and even kitchen waste (by having it composted).
The people in attendance represented nurses from a broad range of settings – hospitals, schools, health departments, academia – as well as a broad range of nursing and other organizations – state nurses associations, minority nursing associations, nursing subspecialty organizations, and the Nurses Workgroup of Health Care Without Harm (a national campaign dedicated to greening the health care sector). There were nursing students, faculty, researchers, bedside nurses, midwives, and nurse practitioners; everyone agreed that all nurses needed to understand the relationship between the environment and human health and how this is important to their specific nursing role.
When leaving the beautiful ranch setting in which the meeting was held, there was great enthusiasm for the work ahead and an ambitious new strategic plan to help guide their activities. To learn more about the Unity Meeting, including access to presentations, videos and photos, see: www.e-Commons.org. To register to post to the site please look on the column on the right hand side of the page and click on “register”.