The benchmark assesses the following competencies:
1.4 Participate in health care policy development to influence nursing practice and health care.
Research public health issues on the “Climate Change” or “Topics and Issues” pages of the American Public Health Association (APHA) website. Investigate a public health issue related to an environmental issue within the U.S. health care delivery system and examine its effect on a specific population.
Write a 750-1,000-word policy brief that summarizes the issue, explains the effect on the population, and proposes a solution to the issue.
Follow this outline when writing the policy brief:
- Describe the policy health issue. Include the following information: (a) what population is affected, (b) at what level does it occur (local, state, or national), and (c) evidence about the issues supported by resources.
- Create a problem statement.
- Provide suggestions for addressing the health issue caused by the current policy. Describe what steps are required to initiate policy change. Include necessary stakeholders (government officials, administrator) and budget or funding considerations, if applicable.
- Discuss the impact on the health care delivery system.
Include three peer-reviewed sources and two other sources to support the policy brief.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
Solution:
Policy Brief
The environment in which people live has been cited by many scholars as one of the main determinants of health. This is attributed to the fact that people typically depend on the environment for energy and resources needed to sustain life such as clean air, safe drinking water, as well as safe places to live (Wu, Lu, Zhou, Chen, & Xu, 2016). Climate change is a significant environmental issue that has had detrimental impacts on the health of people (APHA, 2019). In this consideration, this paper explores climate change as a policy health issue related to the environment and its impact on the healthcare delivery system in the United States.
Description of Policy Health Issue
According to Lemery and Auerbach (2017), over the last couple of decades, a wide range of human activities particularly burning of fossil fuels has led to the emission of sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide as well as greenhouse gases. This, in turn, has resulted in climate change. The impacts of climate change, as posited by McIver et al. (2015) detrimental as it leads to changes in precipitation, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events. These impacts, in turn, threaten the health of people be affecting the food people eat, drinking water, and air. Despite the fact that the severity of these health risks may affect all individuals, a myriad of positivism schools of thoughts has emphasized that the impact on low-income earners is more severe. This is at local, state, as well as national levels.
Problem Statement
Climate change brings about a wide range of human health consequences. As such, Watts et al. (2015) have espoused that the environmental consequences of climate change including extreme health waves, intense hurricanes, rising sea-levels, and degraded air quality usually affect the physical, psychological, as well as social health of people. For instance, according to Lemery and Auerbach (2017), changes in precipitation create changes in the availability of water, which in turn results in extreme weather conditions such as flooding and hurricanes. These affect the health outcomes of people particularly low-income earners who have limited access to primary care. In this consideration, it can be deduced that climate change is a substantial public health issue that needs immediate intervention for the purpose of enhancing the health outcomes of people particularly low-income earners.
Suggestions for Addressing Climate Change
Based on the health issues presented by climate change, there is a considerable need…Please click the icon below to purchase full answer at only $10