Developing curriculum recommendations for environmental health in nursing.

In 2010, the American Nurses Association (ANA) added an environmental health standard to the ANA Scope and Standards of Practice requiring that nurses implement environmental health strategies in nursing practice. To prepare nurse educators to integrate environmental health at all educational levels, nursing faculty members from the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments developed environmental health competencies and curricular recommendations that address this need. Internet URLs are included for environmental health curricula for each level of nursing education.

Health behavior in adolescent women reporting and not reporting intimate partner violence.

OBJECTIVE: To determine similarities and differences between adolescent women reporting intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or forced sexual intercourse (FSI) and those not reporting these experiences on a series of health-enhancing and health-compromising behaviors. DESIGN AND SETTING: Secondary analysis of the 2001 Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted in high schools throughout the United States. PARTICIPANTS: One thousand six hundred and eight female students among whom 450 reported no IPV or FSI, 457 reported IPV, 473 reported FSI, and 228 reported experiencing IPV and FSI. METHODS: Descriptive statistics and discriminant function analysis. RESULTS: Statistical analyses revealed that the groups of adolescent women experiencing IPV and FSI were more alike than disparate, so groups were combined for further analysis. Results reveal that adolescent women reporting IPV and FSI are more likely to participate in health-compromising behaviors and less likely to participate in health-enhancing behaviors. CONCLUSION: Adolescent women reporting either IPV or forced sex are more likely to be engaging in risky behaviors and less likely to be engaged in health-enhancing behaviors. These findings have important implications for health care professionals who care for adolescent women.