What's it like being a public health nurse?

[nurse7502]

I'm considering a career in public health nursing and I've been searching the internet for a job description. I've seen that public health nurses do various things such as educating the public and working on disease control and prevention. But I wanted to get a better sense from everyone on here as to what a public health nurse does. Is anyone on here a public health nurse and can comment on what their job is like?

[xokw, BSN, RN]

I know this is an older post but I’ll shed some insight. Some public health nurses (PHNs) work in areas like infectious diseases which can involve a lot of case and contact management of reportable communicable diseases - my understanding is it is a lot of interpreting lab results, tracking down contacts of those who have been exposed, managing outbreaks, etc. Some do clinic work (vaccines, sexual health, breastfeeding, etc.). Some work with school boards, community partners, etc.

I do a lot of health promotion work which includes a lot of using research/evidence-informed decision making to influence policy/program planning in the community. I work on initiatives related to anything from falls/injury prevention across the lifespan, alcohol/substance misuse prevention and mental health promotion. On any given day I could be working on a literature review that is part of a larger research project which will be used to inform policy/program decisions, facilitating stakeholder consultations with community partners to uncover locals needs and gaps in service, or working with our epidemiology team to uncover local trends in any of my topic areas. It is a vast role.

I used to joke when I accepted my job that I was trading in my scrubs for a lifetime of trying to explain what a PHN actually does, and it has proven true so far!

[Katie82, RN]

I worked Public Health for 10 years. I loved it. I worked in a Women"s Health Program. We had adult and teen clinics that also involved a lot of Community Outreach and case management. We worked with the schools and Teen Parenting Program and were very involved in Teen Pregnancy Prevention. Many private and government health initiatives are channeled through Health Departments and afford nurses opportunities to specialize. Check out the websites to a couple of your County Health Departments to see what they're doing.