Health policy is a structured effort of organized groups, such as nursing, to influence government policy for health needs. Political power is defined as the ability to influence government officials to use the power of their office to affect a desired outcome. Community health nursing has always been involved with health policy as part of the nursing process for intervention and planning for aggregates. Public health policy is a set of principles which include being multi-sectoral in scope, ecologic, responsible for increasing health promoting options, multi-faceted, complementary to health services and participatory. The public health model, based on Winslow’s definition, underscores the reasons for the inevitable involvement and concern of community health nurse with political power, regardless of agency affiliation with the public or private sectors. Understanding health policy is as important as understanding research, becoming clinically proficient and monitoring the quality of nursing care, especially to the community health nurse.
