- Jacqueline Fawcett: College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA. ORCID
This essay is about health policies. Included are the definition of health policy, the descriptions of the concepts of a conceptual model of nursing and health policy, and examples of various sources of health policies. A central thesis of this essay is that practice guidelines are largely unrecognized as health policies. This thesis provides the connection between the abstract idea of a health policy and what is done in nursing practice. The essay concludes with examples of research questions about nursing and health policies.