On the Job in Brief

Report links nursing gains to equity

Investing in nurses is key to advancing U.S. health equity, according to a new report from the National Academy of Medicine.

“The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity,” released in May, reports that the U.S. needs a substantial increase in the number, types and distribution of nurses across geographic areas, specialties and care settings. Nurses already make up the largest segment of the U.S. health care workforce, with about 4 million practitioners nationwide.

The report laid out several recommendations, calling for strengthening nursing education, promoting diversity and equity within the nursing work-force, investing in school and public health nurses, and preparing nurses for disaster and public health emergency response. Authors also called on policymakers to make new telehealth rules created during the COVID-19 pandemic permanent.

By the end of 2021, according to the report, all national nursing organizations — led by the Tri-Council for Nursing and the Council for Public Health Nursing Organizations — should begin to develop a shared agenda for addressing social determinants of health and achieving health equity.

For more information, visit www.nationalacademies.org.

Pre-print studies aid pandemic science

Making scientific information freely and more quickly available bolstered public access to COVID-19 research, finds a new study. The publication of pre-prints — study manuscripts that are shared prior to the traditional peer-review process — was a key driver in the dissemination and communication of COVID-19 research.

Published in April in PLOS Biology, the study found that by the end of April 2020, more than 19,000 scientific papers related to COVID-19 had been released, with about 65% in scientific journals and about 35% via pre-print. By October 2020, over 125,000 papers on COVID-19 had appeared, more than 31,000 of which were pre-prints.

Abstracts of COVID-19 pre-prints were viewed 18 times more than other pre-prints. Nearly 29% of COVID-19 pre-prints were featured in at least one news article, compared to 1% of other pre-prints, and they were used in news articles at a rate of almost 100 times that of other pre-prints.

“By communicating science through pre-prints, we are sharing research at a faster rate and with greater transparency than allowed by the current journal infrastructure,” the study said.

Poor nurse health causes more errors

Poor mental and physical health among critical care nurses can lead to more medical errors, according to a study published in May in the American Journal of Critical Care.

The study is based on survey data — collected before the COVID-19 pandemic — from nearly 800 members of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. Researchers found that nurses who reported worse health and well-being had a 31% to 62% higher likelihood of making medical errors. Overall, 61% of respondents reported suboptimal physical health, while 51% reported suboptimal mental health. About 40% screened positive for depressive symptoms and more than half screened positive for anxiety.

Nurses employed in workplaces that provided greater support for wellness were more than twice as likely to have better personal health and professional quality of life than those whose work-places offered little or no support.

Reduced state funds harm public health

Cuts to public health funding left states ill-equipped to face the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a study in March in Health Affairs, researchers used census data to examine state public health spending from 2008 to 2018. In 2008, they found that mean and median per capita population-weighted state government public health spending was $80.40 and $62.37, respectively. By 2018, those figures had dropped to $75.83 and $54.28.

Over the study period, there was no significant growth in states’ average per capita public health spending.

“Ultimately, the financial foundation for a better public health system rests on understanding how badly state and local health departments have been neglected and how important they are for the nation’s collective health and safety now and well into the future,” the study said.

In May, President Joe Biden proposed about $7.4 billion in spending to boost the public health workforce, about $4.4 billion of which would be earmarked for states.