Question

How does Lillian Wald’s approach to individual and community health care provides an understanding of how to facilitate the empowerment of aggregates in the community?

Answer 1

Lillian D. Wald’s (1867-1940) has major contributions to public health nursing. Her powerful and top priority dedication was to serve deprived populations. Moreover Wald’s emphasis on illness prevention & health promotion through health teaching and nursing involvement. Furthermore by using the epidemiological methodology she established this concept as milestone in public health nursing practice.

The public health nursing is characterized by serving to the public with the family targeted as a primary unit of care. Lillian Wald's approach to individual and community health care provides an understanding of how to facilitate the empowerment of aggregates in the community, which is the need of healthcare system and such practice, should be appreciated.

In this way Wald emphasized that one could not understand an individual without understanding the family, and the family is in the hold of bigger social and economic services that they cannot control.

Hence it is clear that the individuals & families are strongly influenced by the community and environment around them.

Further Lillian Wald's concepts included mobilizing communities to solve local problems, treating the poor, and improving the environmental conditions that promote disease.

This idea became very popular in the community health nursing. And thus clients do not join agencies; rather, agencies serve clients.

And in this way by approaching to individual and community health care we can generate an understanding of how to facilitate the empowerment of aggregates in the community.