course material

1. Policy and Advocacy Assignment
Policy and Advocacy AssignmentPost an explanation of at least two opportunities that exist
for RNs and APRNs to actively participate in policy-making.Policy making and advocacy are
important tools for building strong health care systems. They allow nurses to represent
their patients in voicing the issues that affect their health and lives while holding the
government accountable for meeting their needs. Through knowledge of health
determinants, nurses are able to understand some of the root causes of poor health within
the population and provide guidance on the appropriate solutions. Towards this end, there
are two opportunities for nurses to participate in policy-making. Firstly, they can leverage
their knowledge of social determinants of health. As health care workers whose
professional responsibilities include identifying these determinants, nurses can leverage
their knowledge as expert sources of information who inform policy making. Secondly,
nurses form the largest population of a single health care profession. This large number
ensures that nurses have a loud voice that cannot be ignored in civic engagement. The large
vote that nurses have ensures that they form a powerful force in policy making and can
greatly influence the direction of health policies (Patton, Zalon & Ludwick, 2018). Policy and
Advocacy AssignmentORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HEREExplain some of the
challenges that these opportunities may present and describe how you might overcome
these challenges.The two discussed opportunities for nurses’ participation in policy making
present some challenges. Firstly, nurses can only present their perspective and this is only
one perspective among many other perspectives. This implies that even if nurses are in
large numbers, their voice will only be considered one among the voices of other
stakeholders. Secondly, nurses are typically engaged in an advisory role in the policy
making with elected and appointed officials having the final choice of policy to implement.
This implies that nurses must have the capacity to convince these officials that their input is
valuable and necessary (Loversidge & Zurmehly, 2019). Finally, nurses form a large
population such that there are no guarantees that they would always have a common voice.
It is not unusual for nurses to disagree among themselves over how a policy should be
framed and worded. This can make it difficult to nurses to leverage their large numbers and
present a single voice (Patton, Zalon & Ludwick, 2018). Policy and Advocacy
AssignmentRecommend two strategies you might make to better advocate for or
communicate the existence of these opportunities to participate in policy-making.There are
two strategies for communicating the existing of the discussed opportunities. The first
strategy is to conduct policy dialogue. This allows nurses to reach a consensus among

2. themselves over the framing and wording of policy so that they are better able to leverage
their large numbers in policy making. The second strategy is to build advocacy capacity
among nurses so that they are able to leverage their knowledge of social determinants of
health. Nurses are aware of what needs to be changed, and capacity building provides them
with the tools to propose the necessary policy changes (Nickitas, Middaugh & Aries,
2016).ReferencesLoversidge, J. & Zurmehly, J. (2019). Evidence-Informed Health Policy:
Using EBP to Transform Policy in Nursing and Healthcare. Sigma Theta Tau International
Honor Society of Nursing.Nickitas, D., Middaugh, D. & Aries, N. (2016). Policy and Politics for
Nurses and Other Health Professionals (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.Patton, R.,
Zalon, M. & Ludwick, R. (2018). Nurses Making Policy: From Bedside to Boardroom (2nd
ed). Springer Publishing Company. Policy and Advocacy Assignment