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Public health nurses (PHN) seek to improve health for the entire population by instilling preventative interventions. Ethical principles must always be considered when creating public health interventions because public health officials can use police powers to enforce such interventions or laws (Buchanan, 2019). When creating an ethical practice environment, PHN should consider justice, social solidarity, and the potential for harm (Buchanan, 2019). The ethical dilemma I chose in the first discussion was vaccine mandates for the population.
In order to create and promote an ethical practice environment as a PHN, I would use the Public Health Interventions: Applications for Public Health Nursing Practice as a guide. The manual provides evidence-based nursing interventions so PHN can succeed in their practice interventions (Minnesota Department of Health, 2019). I would focus on the blue wedge: health teaching, counseling, and consultation, and the yellow wedge: advocacy, social marketing, and policy development /enforcement (Minnesota Department of Health, 2019). Health teaching is fundamental for vaccine requirements to be successful. When the PHN provides health teaching to the community, they share crucial information and experiences to improve health knowledge, behaviors, skills, and attitudes (Minnesota Department of Health, 2019). Effective health risk communication is also important to provide effective health knowledge.