The two public health issues Lillian Wald tried to address were public health nursing and the creation of a system of insurance payments in the country for home-based care (Buhler-Wilkerson, 1993, p. 1778-1786). Wald founded public health nursing service after an encounter with poor families from Lower East Side in New York City. She founded it with the aim of ministering nursing services to the poor. Wald was able to introduce home-care nursing care through nursing insurance after she convinced the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to employ nurses to look after people with an insurance cover (Ruel, 2014, p. 587-600). It led to the establishment of a nation-wide insurance coverage system for home-based care.
The domains of public health nursing practice involved were health improvement and health services. Health improvement was made by monitoring the health status of the people while at the same time educating, empowering and informing them. On the other hand, health services were offered by connecting people to the health services they needed while also formulating policies and programs like home-care insurance.
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Both issues addressed by Lillian Wald are still a concern. Today, public health nurses still focus on improving the health of communities while operating in areas such as schools and community clinics. Home-care insurance model proposed by Wald has been practiced today globally by insurance companies. As a result, people, who have a home-care insurance policy cover, still receive home-care services. The main comparison between public health nursing today and during Lilian Wald’s period is that in both times, the main focus of public health nursing is improving the health conditions of communities. The main contrast is that today almost all insurance companies offer a home-care insurance policy cover as compared to Wald’s time when not all insurance companies offered these services.
References
Buhler-Wilkerson, K. (1993). Bringing care to the people: Lillian Wald's legacy to public health nursing. American Journal of Public Health , 83 (12), 1778-1786.
Ruel, S. R. (2014). Lillian Wald: A pioneer of home healthcare in the United States. Home Healthcare Now , 32 (10), 597-600.
