Response to Kyla

Week2 Dr Waters Responce to Kyla 450 words please 🙏🏿

Background Problem

Inspiring change is a central theme of healthcare and public health policy. Nurses provide direct patient care to individuals across the lifespan, making them excellent candidates for invoking change (Inayat et al., 2023). By witnessing the impact of health policy firsthand, nurses are informed to serve in roles emphasizing policymaking. One problem that requires a need for policy is alcohol consumption. Alcohol is an addictive, intoxicating substance that is commonly used for entertainment around the globe (Ilhan & Yapar, 2020). Despite the potentially negative impact of alcohol, approximately one in three persons is a current drinker worldwide. Alcohol has been linked to more than 200 injuries and diseases, such as neuropsychiatric conditions, cardiovascular conditions, cancer, and death (Ilhan & Yapar, 2020). Additionally, over three million people die from detrimental alcohol use, and deaths related to alcohol account for more than 5% of all deaths worldwide. Current policies for alcohol are inadequately enforced, and as alcohol-related conditions rise, it is apparent that updated alcohol policies are necessary.

Proposed Policy

In the state of Florida, several strategies are in place to prevent excessive alcohol use and abuse. However, further opportunities are available to address this growing crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asserts that states can increase alcohol taxes, regulate alcohol outlet density, and maintain limits on sales to control alcohol use and misuse (CDC, 2024). Florida currently operates with state alcohol taxes, alcohol retail licensing, and limits hours of alcohol sales. However, Florida currently allows private retailers to sell alcohol against the recommendations of the CDC (CDC, 2024). Therefore, the implementation of policy could address this problem by limiting alcohol sales to government retailers per CDC recommendations.

Policy Process

To begin the implementation of the policy process, an advanced practice nurse (APN) would benefit from an outlined framework to guide their steps and highlight their skills to elicit change. The Yoder Wise Model is a framework designed for planned policy change for nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic (Anders, 2021). This framework outlines nine steps for success and begins with a precipitating event causing a critical point that demands action, such as increasing alcohol-related problems. The APN would then assess the situation to determine the need for additional action. Extensive planning would occur, including detailing definitions and timing and involving additional stakeholders to address the problem. Given that this policy would be addressed at the state level, this would require collaboration with legislators and representatives. The APN would then monitor the movement of the policy change with stakeholders until the subsequent enactment of the policy (Anders, 2021). The APN would routinely refocus with the team and evaluate the effectiveness of the policy when appropriate.

Implementation Challenges

The APN may encounter several barriers to the implementation of this policy. As previously discussed, many nurses feel they need more preparation for strategic policymaking due to inadequate education and preparation (Inayat et al., 2023). Given that this policy would address state-level concerns, it would be imperative for the APN to have experience with policy internships, training, or policymaking projects to improve readiness. Another problem the APN may encounter is hesitancy to eliminate the privatization of alcohol. Given that alcohol taxes raise revenue, the state of Florida may feel compelled to continue the widespread availability of alcohol to maintain taxation (CDC, 2024). Therefore, the APN must have robust data to support the detriment of privatization to initiate policy change at the state level.

References

Anders R. L. (2021). Engaging nurses in health policy in the era of COVID-19. Nursing Forum, 56(1), 89–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12514

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2024). Alcohol and public health: Florida. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/states/excessive-alcohol-use-united-states.html#FL

Ilhan, M. N., & Yapar, D. (2020). Alcohol consumption and alcohol policy. Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences, 50(5), 1197–1202. https://doi.org/10.3906/sag-2002-237

Inayat, S., Younas, A., Andleeb, S., Rasheed, S. P., & Ali, P. (2023). Enhancing nurses’ involvement in policy making: A qualitative study of nurse leaders. International nursing review, 70(3), 297–306. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12828