The first line of prevention: A public health nursing advocacy video

Schaer, Janita M.; Campbell, Lisa; Thomas, Laura

doi:10.1111/phn.13013

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In many countries, including Japan, public health nurses provide essential services to protect the health of people in the community and they serve as the front line of prevention in the event of a public health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic [ 18 , 19 ]. Although the number of public health nurses is considered to be one of the key factors in controlling the spread of COVID-19, we could not find any previous studies reporting that the high number of public health nurses per population was associated with low morbidity of COVID-19.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Number of public health nurses and COVID-19 incidence rate by variant type: an ecological study of 47 prefectures in Japan

Tomioka

Shima

Saeki

2022

Environ Health Prev Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Community health activities by public health nurses (PHNs) are known to improve lifestyle habits of local residents, and may encourage the practice of infectious disease prevention behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated the association between prefecture-level COVID-19 incidence rate and the number of PHNs per population in Japan, by the COVID-19 variant type. Methods Our data were based on government surveys where prefectural-level data are accessible to the public. The outcome variable was the COVID-19 incidence rate (i.e., the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population for each variant type in 47 prefectures). The explanatory variable was the number of PHNs per 100,000 population by prefecture. Covariates included socioeconomic factors, regional characteristics, healthcare resources, and health behaviors. The generalized estimating equations of the multivariable Poisson regression models were used to estimate adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the COVID-19 cases. We performed stratified analyses by variant type (i.e., wild type, alpha variant, and delta variant). Results A total of 1,705,224 confirmed COVID-19 cases (1351.6 per 100,000 population) in Japan were reported as of September 30, 2021. The number of PHNs per 100,000 population in Japan was 41.9. Multivariable Poisson regression models showed that a lower number of PHNs per population was associated with higher IRR of COVID-19. Among all COVID-19 cases, compared to the highest quintile group of the number of PHNs per population, the adjusted IRR of the lowest quintile group was consistently significant in the models adjusting for socioeconomic factors (IRR: 3.76, 95% CI: 2.55–5.54), regional characteristics (1.73, 1.28–2.34), healthcare resources (3.88, 2.45–6.16), and health behaviors (2.17, 1.39–3.37). These significant associations were unaffected by the variant type of COVID-19. Conclusion We found that the COVID-19 incidence rate was higher in prefectures with fewer PHNs per population, regardless of the COVID-19 variant type. By increasing the number of PHNs, it may be possible to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Japan and provide an effective human resource to combat emerging infectious diseases in the future. Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1265/ehpm.22-00013 .

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%