The Global Nursing Caucus: A Nurses Network for Population Health.
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Nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers in the world, caring for 1 in 10 patients, and are often referred to as the backbone of healthcare systems. Nurses provide leadership in practice, policy, research, and education. They are the health professionals closest to the patient, both at the bedside and in the community, and therefore have a direct impact on people’s health. Nurses also play an important role in developing models of care and supporting efforts for disease detection, treatment, health promotion, and prevention. Globally, nurses are involved in research that is changing the landscape of health care. Ideas originated by nurses have seen improvements in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing and prevention strategies, family planning uptake and use, and response to the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Nurses are also an important constituent at the School of Public Health, making up a sizable percentage of each MPH class and providing clinical perspectives to their fellow students. The Global Nursing Caucus, a 501(c)(3) organization created to support nurses working across the globe, was founded in 2011 by MPH students. The students were already qualified nurses before coming to SPH and sought a forum where they could meet and share their experiences, listen to other nurses, and build a nursing-centric coalition around global population health. These students sought more clarity about their role as clinicians and their growing interest in population health: What does it mean to be a nurse in global health? Where is our place in global and population health? What can we do with our MPH degree?
From its humble beginnings at SPH, the Global Nursing Caucus has grown into a local organization with a global reach. Its mission is to advance the role of nurses in global health practice, education, and policy through advocacy, collaboration, and engagement. We envision a world in which nurses collaborate globally—impacting research, practice, and policy in order to advance health for all. Any nurse, from remote village clinics to the Ministry of Health headquarters, can become a member of the Global Nursing Caucus. This distinguishes us from other global nursing entities that require country representations rather than individuals. We believe that every nurse counts.
Nurses must remain in the forefront of innovation for patient care, including the use of healthcare technology. One way to keep up with the ever-advancing field of medicine is through networking, engaging, and collaborating both with other nurses and with a broad array of healthcare professionals. The majority of nurses who work in global health lack fora where they can meet colleagues and mentors to consult with and share their work. The Global Nursing Caucus has filled this void. Through annual conferences and a new online platform known as the Global Nurse Finder, the Global Nursing Caucus has become a forum where nurses interested in global health have the opportunity to network and share the latest innovations in research, education, and practice, as well as collaborate to improve individual and population health while also advancing their careers.
Since 2011, we have held annual conferences in Boston where nurses both local and global join us to present their work, ask questions, or simply be in virtual attendance via remote access. Our 2018 conference’s theme was “Networking to Raise the Voice of Nursing in Global Health.” Conference attendees examined the impact of North–South nursing collaborations on universal access to high-quality, safe health care and explored a variety of models for partnerships and networking as a strategy to illuminate and strengthen the voice and profile of nursing globally.
The Global Nursing Caucus conferences have also provided networking for both MPH and nursing students. Nursing students interested in global health have connected with mentors across the world, and MPH students interested in nursing have had the opportunity to network with nurse leaders and join nursing schools for nurse practitioner training and Doctor in Nursing Practice degrees.
Global health challenges are multifaceted and lend themselves to multi-disciplinary solutions that emerge from diverse experiences and perspectives. Nurses from academic and healthcare institutions, nongovernmental organizations, professional societies, and more are creating transnational networks and are eager to collaborate across borders with a goal of providing universal healthcare access to populations. Having opportunities to spotlight their work, and facilitating connections amongst one another and with the broader healthcare community, are important steps towards achieving their goals of better health for all.
On April 2, SPH will host the Dean’s Symposium “Nursing and the Health of Populations,” cosponsored by Nursing Now, a three-year global campaign run in collaboration with the International Council of Nurses and the World Health Organization.
Monica Adhiambo Onyango is a Kenyan-trained nurse midwife, a clinical associate professor of global health, and codirector of the Global Nursing Caucus. Barbara Waldorf is cofounder and former executive director of the Global Nursing Caucus.