THE EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH IN NURSING CURRICULA: A COMPARISON OF TWO SCHOOLS OF NURSING IN TEXAS WITH TRENDS DEPICTED IN THE 'AMERICAN JOURNAL OF NURSING

In this historical study the investigator examined the evolution of public health in nursing curricula as evidenced in the American Journal of Nursing from 1900 to 1970 and two schools of nursing in Texas from their inception until 1970. The two nursing schools were The University of Texas and Harris College of Nursing at Texas Christian University. Data were obtained by content analysis of selected articles from the American Journal of Nursing, course descriptions of schools and catalogs, and annual reports submitted to the Board of Nurse Examiners for the State of Texas. Trends were identified from the data appearing in the American Journal of Nursing. Trends found were: That nursing educators and leaders advocated public health in the last year of the nursing program; that public health for nursing students was advocated as early as the first decade of the nineteen hundreds; and integration of public health content as a part of every nursing course was recommended as early as the 1920's.;These trends were compared with the data from the two selected schools of nursing. The findings revealed that public health content experienced a slow beginning in the two curriculums. For many of the early years at one of the schools public health was an elective and therefore not available to every student. The other school offered content relative to public health much earlier in its history, but public health clinical experience did not occur until a decade later. Both schools had well established public health content and clinical components in their curriculums by 1950. While the American Journal of Nursing had advocated integration of public health throughout the curriculum, this was not apparent in the data from the two schools in the study. Public health content remained in the "block" curricular design in the two schools for the period of time chosen for the study.