Today we define public health as what “we as
a society do collectively to assure the conditions
in which people can be healthy” (Institute of
Medicine, 1988). Public health nurses employ knowledge
from nursing, social, and public health sciences to
promote the health of populations (APHA Public Health
Nursing Section, 1996). The science of public health
and the profession of public health nursing are, by their
nature, civic enterprises that are inseparable from social
and environmental forces. As a result, the history of public
health and public health nursing is marked with
progressive social reformers who challenged social norms
and common beliefs to improve the public’s health.
The historical figures in public health history
responded to epidemics, poverty, social revolutions, and
international events not only as opportunities to prevent
further suffering among populations but also to learn
lessons about the nature of infectious disease and the
policies and social changes that can be made to prevent
suffering before it starts. Public health heroes in history
emphasized social justice, broad system change, and
political action as a way of improving the health of whole
populations, not just the health of the individuals with
whom they came into contact. historical public health
leaders also maintained a broad conception of their
responsibility to improve the health of others and emphasized
an obligation to address the conditions that underlie
health problems. Public health nursing reformers
viewed social justice as central to nursing and inseparable
from nursing work. Lillian Wald and Lavinia Dock
are among those who make up nursing’s “distinguished
history of concern . . . for social justice” referenced in the
2001 Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements
(ANA, 2001). Wald, Dock, and others grew indignant
from witnessing the destructive outcomes of institutionalized
poverty and of gender and ethnic inequalities.
Each of these nurses harnessed her indignation to work
toward the creation of progressive health policies.