DEVELOPMENT OF THE PAN-AMERICAN HEALTH ORGANIZATION NURSING ADVISORY SERVICES: IMPACT IN LATIN AMERICAN NURSING EDUCATION (1940 - 1980

The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the development of the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) Nursing Services and to explore the impact of its policies and recommendations on Latin American nursing education. The central argument is the relationship between society and nursing development, according to the process of change in Latin American social formation. The analysis is based on three hypothesis: (1) observed changes in PAHO's nursing educational policies are determined by the general conceptions of health adopted at a given time by the Organization; (2) the impact of PAHO's nursing recommendations on Latin American nursing education depends upon their degree of congruence with internal societal realities; and, (3) the impact of PAHO's recommendations depends upon formal linkage of nursing schools with PAHO's nursing service.;Two methodological approaches were used: a historical research of the development of nursing education in Latin America and of PAHO's Nursing Service, and an exploratory study to examine the impact of PAHO's recommendations on selected Latin American nursing schools. The historical research took three distinctive periods of Latin America social formation and the factors which more directly affected the establishment of dominant health practice since the beginning of the last century, and established the articulation between society, and dominant nursing professional practice. The exploratory study examined data from 45 schools of nursing from 13 countries of Latin America. Based on four major recommendations of PAHO's Nursing Service, six indicators for introduction of educational innovations were identified. The relationships were analyzed in accordance with linkage or lack of linkage of the schools with PAHO. The major findings indicated that linkage with PAHO does not foster any significant variability the measures of introduction of selected curricular innovations in the schools.;The major conclusions indicated that Latin America's nursing development reflected the changes observed in the social formation of the countries; PAHO's Nursing Services development reflected the complexity of an international organization whose major role is the diffusion of dominant health concepts; and, PAHO's influence on Latin American nursing education needs to be further examined.