Community-Based Participatory Research partnership with faith-based organizations to address obesity and glucose control.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the lived (narrative) experience of obesity and/or diabetes mellitus within focus groups consisting of individuals and community support persons residing in Genesee County, Michigan. DESIGN: Qualitative study, using Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methodology to design and conduct focus group interviews. SAMPLE: Nineteen participants from faith-based organizations (FBOs) in Genesee County (74.5% Caucasian, 3.0% Hispanic American). MEASUREMENTS: Semi-structured narrative focus group interviews, using thematic coding and qualitative analysis software (Otter.com). RESULTS: Participants from diverse FBOs revealed barriers that prevent them from reaching their weight goals and preventing or controlling diabetes. A shared theme included the concern that providers do not actively inquire about patient concerns at appointments, and they fail to offer practical strategies beyond pharmaceutical interventions. CONCLUSION: Focus group interviews with community residents revealed issues and barriers patients and their support persons face in health care experiences. Utilizing CBPR (methodology) is an opportunity for advanced practice nurses (health care professionals) to co-create strategies and interventions with the community that can assist them in successfully reaching their weight loss and diabetes prevention goals.

Children's Oral Health in Nursing Education and Practice: A Call for Action.

Dental caries are preventable but remain all too common.

Integrating Environmental Sustainability Content Into an RN-to-BSN Program: A Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: The link between environmental sustainability, climate change, and health outcomes makes environmental sustainability an important topic for educators to include in nursing curricula. METHOD: Students completed a sustainability in nursing learning module, over a 4-week period, during which students created blog posts based on the learning materials and clinical practice observations. The Sustainability Attitudes in Nursing Survey questionnaire was incorporated to measure changes in student attitudes regarding sustainability. RESULTS: Descriptive statistics indicated that students had higher average scores on the posttest for all variables except one measurement. Paired t-test results revealed statistically significant differences in nine sustainability attitude items in the pretest and posttest scores. These findings suggest that the intervention likely contributed to improved attitudes about sustainability in the workplace. CONCLUSION: Results of this study are promising because the brief intervention had a significant effect on practicing nurses' attitudes about sustainability in their work environments. [J Nurs Educ. 2020;59(11):637-641.].

Assessing student expectations and perceptions of a short-term international service-learning experience.

OBJECTIVES: Despite nursing students' need for cultural education, few studies have measured what students expect from international service-learning experiences and how their perceptions of the actual experience compare to these expectations. To increase understanding of global nursing experiences, the purpose of this study was to examine the similarities and differences between nursing students' anticipated (pre-travel) personal and professional developmental expectations and reported (posttravel) personal and developmental outcomes. DESIGN: This study employed a mixed descriptive research design. Quantitative data was secured through survey methodology. Written responses to open-ended questions provided qualitative data for analysis. SAMPLE: Between 2012 and 2017, 43 undergraduate and graduate nursing students at a Midwestern university completed surveys and narratives about their participation in an international service-learning course in Kenya. RESULTS: Students' anticipated learning was achieved through their international experiences. Participants also experienced personal growth, professional development, cultural competency enhancement, and transformation from the educational experience. They also described how their experiences would change their personal and professional lives. CONCLUSION: The depth and breadth of the growth and learning described by students is consistent with the expectations of high-impact educational practices.

The Crisis and the Shutoffs: Reimagining Water in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, Through an EcoJustice Analysis.

This chapter outlines the guiding theoretical framework of EcoJustice Education (EJE), research questions, semistructured interviews with nursing scholars that begin to question the perceptions that lead us to the crisis and recommendations of how sustainability efforts can help to address the vital relationality of human beings to water. It highlights the profession of nursing education in order for nurses to understand their roles within the context of the crises. The EJE theoretical framework will help nurse educators reimagine a new understanding and a powerful discovery that includes the awareness of a broad set of historically constructed and politically motivated power knowledge relations in nursing. The chapter provides examples and discussions of four dominant discourses predominant within the Flint Water Crisis and Detroit Water Shutoffs: anthropocentrism, ethnocentrism, individualism, and mechanism. These discourses are related to nursing education to further explain how they are pervaded in nursing.