Public Health Law and Policy: Nursing Practice, Competency Standards

This essay delves into the crucial relationship between public health law and nursing practice, highlighting how legal interventions significantly contribute to public health achievements. It emphasizes the importance of nurses' understanding of public health laws for effective practice and improved population health outcomes. The discussion covers the challenges in promoting public health, advocating for collaborative practices among health professionals, especially nurses. The essay explores how public health laws, such as the Public Health Law 2010 and the Public Health and Well-being Act 2008, enhance nursing practices by promoting sanitation, mental and physical well-being, and evidence-based decision-making. It also examines how these laws align with nursing competency standards, including health monitoring, disease prevention, health protection, and health promotion, to ensure nurses are well-equipped to address public health issues. The essay concludes by underscoring the critical role of public health legislation in patient-centric care and improving population health, and how the nursing competency standards will strengthen skills for legal interventions to reduce public health issues.

Running head : PUBLIC HEALTH LAW AND POLICY
Public health law and policy
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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PUBLIC HEALTH LAW AND POLICY
Introduction:
Although legal interventional is responsible for majority number of public health
achievements, the law for accurate interventions is not utilized properly for improving the
population health and reducing disease. A considerate number of public health achievements are
the result of legal interventions in Australia (Gostin & Wiley, 2016).The public health laws in
the previous era have shown the powerful effect in minimizing environmental and behavioral
health risk (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). This essay will argue how public health laws are
related to the nursing practice as a nursing officer and future scopes of it. Therefore, this paper
will reflect on the public health laws related to nursing practice with the help theories and future
career and practice according to nursing competency standard in following paragraphs.
Discussion:
As observed in the recent era, the greatest hindrance for improving population health is
the lack of Lack of sufficient, high-quality health workers who have sound knowledge about the
implementation of public health laws in clinical premises. Therefore, the challenges of
promoting public health can be solved if every domain of health professional, especially nursing
involves themselves in collaborative practices for minimizing the risk of chronic diseases
(Edmonds, Campbell & Gilder,2017). Being the nursing officer, these public health laws and
regulations enhanced my area of practices for legal interventions in order to improve public
health (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Democratic theory for improving public health directly
guided me for enhancing my area of practice. In a democratic system, the primary responsibility

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for public health is placed in the hands of government and the public health policies and laws
facilitate my area of practice because I have taken collective actions for food safety, proper
sanitization and clean air for improving population health. World health organization stated that
public health law implemented for collective actions for individual consequences (Sartori, 2016).
Therefore, incorporation of public health law assisted me to involve myself in collaborative
practice for the greater good of the society. My specialty practice area is mostly associated with
the legislative practice of public health law 2010 and public health and well-being act 2008
These public health legislations implanted awareness as a nursing officer for maintaining
sanitizations in ever-healthcare sectors for minimizing risk factors. Public health and well being
act 2008 legislated for the highest attainable standard of mental and physical wellbeing (Esping-
Andersen, 2017). Therefore, this act enhanced my area of practice by providing me sound
knowledge about protective public health from the disease. Furthermore, facilitates my evidence-
based decision-making skills for legal interventions and leadership quality for improving public
health, which I will further incorporate in my area of nursing practice.
Underpinning the competency standard of nursing practices, the knowledge I have gained
from the public health policies and laws are effective in enhancing my specialty area of practices.
The first standard of public health graduate competency focused on the importance of health
monitoring and surveillance in nursing (Wu et al., 2014).Therefore, as a nursing officer, it will
assist me to describe common indicator of population health and interpret the research findings
relevant to the population health especially for indigenous people in order to improve population
health. The second competency standard highlighted the importance of disease prevention and
control (Esping-Andersen, 2017). Hence, it will assist me to address key determinants of
population-based disease and Designing a comprehensive population disease prevention strategy

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such as immunization, screening for communicable disease. It will assist me to gain knowledge
how legal framework and service delivery system influence disease prevention and control. The
third standard emphasizes the essentiality of health protection and this will help me to apply
evidence-based approaches for minimizing behavioral risk and will interventions that will
promote safe public health (Wu et al., 2014). The fifth competency standard emphasizes the
essentiality of health promotion and it will aid in enhancing my area of practices for promoting
secure public health by changing the social, cultural, economic and physical environment (Wu et
al., 2014). The sixth nursing competency highlighted the involvement of health policy, planning,
and management and it will help me in developing knowledge about appropriate policies and
regulations (Halcomb et al., 2016). The last standard of competency focused on the essentiality
of Evidence-based Professional Population Health Practice (Wu et al., 2014). It will assist me to
reduce the public health issues by gaining knowledge about evidence-based practices.
Conclusion:
Thus, it can be concluded that for better patient-centric care and improving public health
public health legislation are crucial. Public health laws enhance my area of practice since I
gained baseline knowledge for improving nursing practices. The nursing competency stands will
further assist me to strengthen my skills and assist me to come up with legal intervention for
reducing public health issues.

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References:
Edmonds, J. K., Campbell, L. A., & Gilder, R. E. (2017). Public health nursing practice in the
Affordable Care Act era: A national survey. Public Health Nursing, 34(1), 50-58.
Esping-Andersen, G. (2017). Politics against markets: The social democratic road to
power (Vol. 4877). Princeton University Press.
Gostin, L. O., & Wiley, L. F. (2016). Public health law: power, duty, restraint. Univ of
California Press.
Halcomb, E., Stephens, M., Bryce, J., Foley, E., & Ashley, C. (2016). Nursing competency
standards in primary health care: an integrative review. Journal of clinical nursing, 25(9-
10), 1193-1205.
Sartori, G. (2016). THE THEORY OF DENTOCRACY REVISITED. Democracy: A Reader,
192.
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public health nursing-e-book: Population-centered health
care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Wu, F. Q., Wang, Y. L., Wu, Y., & Guo, M. (2014). Application of nursing core competency
standard education in the training of nursing undergraduates. International journal of
nursing sciences, 1(4), 367-370.