Simulation & Social Justice Advocates for Health Equity (SAFE)

Nursing learners are graduating without the competencies required to address the social determinants of health (SDH). Much SDH learning in nursing education is didactic, with the SDH taught as facts to be known rather than conditions to be changed and challenged. When introduced as a content area rather than a skillset, learners are underequipped to take necessary action to help achieve equity and eliminate disparities. This content-rich, action-poor approach to the SDH may constrain or even hinder the ability of nursing education to achieve the very goals it lauds, to prepare social justice advocates (SJA) for health equity.

Meeting the mandated nursing governing body social justice competencies begins with faculty development. Walter’s social justice in nursing theory describes how nurses come to be and practice social justice beginning with educators. Educators must undergo training designed to bring awareness and perspective transformation to their internal conflicts and how they might benefit from current approaches to teaching the SDH as natural instead of being due to human-made societal systems of power and privilege that give rise to inequities. Limited resources and support exist around nursing faculty development in teaching SJA; therefore, learner participation in equity-focused SDH experiences is often faculty-dependent. We must address these glaring gaps in AP education, beginning with faculty development.

Crystal Murillo, PhD, RN, CHSE-A, ANEF, FAAN

Assistant Professor, Biobehavioral Health and Nursing Science

College of Nursing, University of South Carolina