health care policy Archives

The Harm Done by Dismantling USAID

The Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) abruptly in February, placing nearly all of its over 10,000 employees on administrative leave, freezing appropriated funds, and cancelling nearly 5,800 USAID-managed foreign assistance awards—effectively closing an agency that has led in global humanitarian assistance since it was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

Shutting down the agency has dealt a devastating blow to low- and middle-income countries’ efforts to alleviate poverty, provide health care, and improve public health and education. USAID supported a wide variety of critical global programs, including family planning, disease prevention and treatment, immunizations, and famine relief. Nurses played a critical role in USAID, providing education and training to strengthen severely limited in-country nursing and midwifery workforces, delivering direct care, and leading immunization and other health programs.

Deadly results.

A child in Tajikistan receives a polio vaccination during a campaign to halt a polio outbreak. Photo: USAID, via Wikimedia Commons

An estimated 119,000 children and 57,000 adults have died as a result of USAID funding cuts, according to a real-time tracking tool developed by Boston University associate […]

Guest Author2025-04-18T11:28:30-04:00April 18th, 2025|climate change, environmental health, health care policy, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments

A Tumultuous Seven Weeks for Public Health in the United States

Editor’s note: AJN news director Karen Roush, PhD, RN, FNP, will be providing regular updates on AJN Off the Charts about the details and implications of rapid and potentially momentous changes being made by the Trump administration to the public health system in the United States.

It’s been a tumultuous seven weeks since President Trump’s inauguration. Changes in leadership and priorities have swept across every federal department, bringing uncertainty and disruption. Trump signed more than 70 executive orders (EOs) in his first month in office, including orders to erase diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts from federal agencies and the military (EO 14151); limit the rights of transgender people and declare that only two “sexes,” biological males and females, would be recognized by the federal government (EO 14168); end birthright citizenship (EO 14160); and further limit access to abortion (EO 14182). Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has fired tens of thousands of federal employees, dismantled entire agencies, including USAID, and pulled grant funding from universities, nongovernmental organizations, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to head HHS.

Many of the […]

Guest Author2025-03-07T10:02:20-05:00March 7th, 2025|health care policy, infection control, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments

Nurse Staffing Standards Act Is First Step in Solving Nursing Shortage

Nurses planning to leave the profession.

The nursing shortage continues, with no end in sight. In my current position as faculty in a university DNP program, I hear from students about caring for overwhelming numbers of patients and fearing for their patients’ safety and health. Nurses are suffering burnout because they are caring for so many patients they know nursing care is being missed. A recent survey found that job satisfaction has been dropping for nurses, while the percentage who say they may leave the profession is as high as 30% overall, with younger nurses most likely to say they may leave.

Nurse educators do our best, but we know that we are sending new graduates into the fire. Retired nurses worry about our family members (and ourselves) when we need nursing care.

Congress recently reintroduced the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act. This bill would mandate direct care registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratio requirements in hospitals. It has been introduced in several prior congressional sessions with little progress. We cannot let this window of opportunity pass.

Nurse staffing and patient outcomes.

Linda Aiken’s two decades of research demonstrate the effects of nurse staffing on patient outcomes. Despite legislative efforts in Massachusetts and […]

Guest Author2023-06-13T06:57:19-04:00May 11th, 2023|health care policy, Nursing, Public health|5 Comments

Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids: A Panacea?

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the sale of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss (not severe hearing loss), beginning Oct. 17, 2022. What should nurses know about these devices?

Margaret Wallhagen

Hearing loss is one of the most common chronic conditions, becomes increasingly prevalent across the life span, and is far from benign. This latter fact is often not appreciated, but hearing loss is associated with a range of negative psychosocial concerns such as isolation and depression, as well as many health-related conditions, including falls, delirium, and cognitive decline.

For a long time, I’ve been passionate about raising awareness about hearing loss and its impact on people, their families, society, and the health care they receive, as well as promoting hearing health care access. One intervention that can mitigate some of the impact of hearing loss is the use of hearing aids. The focus of this brief blog post is on a new opportunity for people to access this technology that those of us in health care should be aware of.

Cost as a barrier to use of hearing aids.

Prescription hearing aids, while far from perfect, can help, and usually do make hearing less […]

Guest Author2022-12-05T17:33:55-05:00December 5th, 2022|health care policy, Nursing, Patients, Public health, Technology|2 Comments

Vot-ER: A Nonpartisan Voter Registration Resource for Health Care Settings

The news hits close to home for a mother-to-be.

Eight months into my first pregnancy, an 18-year-old Black man named Michael Brown was killed by police officers in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael Brown was not the first young Black man I’d learn about only in death, nor will he be the last. But as I stood on the cusp of motherhood, weeks away from giving birth to a baby boy, Michael Brown’s death hit close to home. I remember sitting on the kitchen floor, weeping at the thought of raising my son in a country where Black boys were subject to death for acting like normal teenagers.

Our baby was coming, and crying would not change the unjust world he was being born into. I knew I had to do something, and that even small drops could make big ripples. So I threw myself into local civic causes. I had always voted, but now I wanted to make sure people who looked like me and experienced the injustices I did had a voice at the polls. I called voters, wrote letters to elected officials, and worked at polling places. In between my shifts as a nurse practitioner, I organized blood pressure check events with voter registration opportunities. I brought voter registration […]

Guest Author2022-10-04T10:04:03-04:00October 4th, 2022|health care policy, Public health|1 Comment

The Harm Done by Dismantling USAID

Deadly results.

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A Tumultuous Seven Weeks for Public Health in the United States

The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to head HHS.

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Nurse Staffing Standards Act Is First Step in Solving Nursing Shortage

Nurses planning to leave the profession.

Nurse staffing and patient outcomes.

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Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids: A Panacea?

Cost as a barrier to use of hearing aids.

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Vot-ER: A Nonpartisan Voter Registration Resource for Health Care Settings

The news hits close to home for a mother-to-be.

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