Public health nursing has a defined scope of practice and standards just like general nursing and other healthcare-related careers. The American Nurses Association defined the scope and standards in its book Public Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice. The book discusses six Standards of Practice that reflect the nursing process and ten Standards of Professional Performance that address professional standards for the field of public health nursing (American Nurses Associate, 2007). A specific standard of practice and professional performance standard will be explained in detail. Standards of Practice One of the standards of practice is assessment. The assessment evaluates a person, place or situation and is the initial step in any nursing process. In the assessment standard, the public health nurse assesses the population for health problems (American Nurses Association, 2007). This involves collecting data, interpreting the data, and analyzing the problem. It is essential to know which information collected constitutes an urgent issue for the population or community. Additionally, it is important to keep ethical, legal, and privacy issues in mind when obtaining data. For example, if information is obtained through surveys or interviews, it is important to inform participants that the information may be used for publication and consent is required. Data collection can include several methods: surveys, questionnaires, interviews and observations. It is also important to include socioeconomic considerations, biological, psychological, cultural and religious issues. This could have a serious impact on the health of a community. If the community is a Seventh-day Adventist community, such a ... middle of paper ... futures theory plays a vital role in the application of nursing in public health. Without theory, truly understanding the community and population would be difficult. This would lead to not achieving the goal of public health nursing which is to provide the optimal level of care and health to the community and population. Works Cited by the American Nurses Association. (2007). Public health nursing: scope and standards of practice. Silver Springs, MD: American Nurses Association.Parse, R.R. (1999). Community: an alternative vision. Nursing Science Quarterly 12(2), 119-124. Extracted from the CINAHL database. doi: 10.1177/08943189922106747Parse, R.R. (2003). Community: a perspective of becoming human. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Stanhope M. & Lancaster, J. (2008). Public health nursing: Population-centered health care in the community (7th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.