Health care: A life course approach to health and well-being

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Patricia M Davidson

Johns Hopkins University, USA

: J Nurs Patient Care

Abstract

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Health care knowledge and practice models are commonly compartmentalized and siloed leading to poor integration and adverse health outcomes across health and social services. Healthy People 2020 in the United States and the World Health Organization are closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health (2008) provides roadmaps for addressing the social determinants of health as well as biological issues. In this presentation the importance of social determinants of health will be addressed and demonstration of how the environments into which people are born determines health and well–being across the lifespan, even at the moment of death. This is an important call to action for nurses and midwives and requires considering the intersection of health and social services from maternity to end-of-life care. Implications for policy, practice, education and research will be presented.

Biography

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Patricia Davidson is one of the most influential deans of nursing in the U.S. Since joining the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in September 2013, she has introduced a new degree program (Master of Science in Nursing: Master's Entry into Nursing), doubled the school’s PhD program intake, and increased engagement with communities locally, nationally, and internationally. Since 2003, Davidson has secured over $10 million in competitive research grants from national and international funding bodies and co-authored 320-plus peer-reviewed journal articles, 20 book chapters, and more than 100 peer-reviewed abstracts. She has mentored more than 35 doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and is an editor of Circulation, Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, the International Journal of Nursing Studies, Collegian, and the Journal of Nursing Management. She is on the editorial boards of a number of other scholarly journals.