January 29, 2010

To Directors of Nursing Programs in Canadaes,

I would very much appreciate your forwarding the following information to nursing faculty in your program, and encouraging them to complete the online survey described in this email to identify global health competencies for basic or undergraduate nursing students. The survey is being administered as part of a study to identify perceptions of nurses and nurse educators in the Americas (the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Caribbean) about global health competencies for basic or undergraduate nursing students that might be used to guide nursing curricula in the Americas to ensure that all graduating nurses have competencies in global health. This survey includes a list of proposed global health competencies and respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree that each competency is appropriate for nursing students in the Americas. The study is being conducted by Dr. Lynda Wilson, RN, PhD, Professor in the School of Nursing of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in collaboration with nursing faculty at the National University of Mexico and the University of Sao Paulo at Ribeirao Preto, Brazil.

You are eligible to participate in this survey if you are a nurse educator in the United States, Canada, Latin America, or a Caribbean country who speaks Spanish, Portuguese, or English. By completing this survey, you indicate your consent to participate in our study. It should take about 20 minutes of your time to complete this survey. Your responses to the survey will be anonymous and will be reported only as grouped data. Your participation in this survey will provide information that may help to guide nursing faculty to develop curricula to prepare nurses to assume important roles in promoting global health.

For the purposes of this document, global health is defined as “an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide. Global health emphasizes transnational health issues, determinants, and solutions; involves many disciplines within and beyond the health sciences and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration; and is a synthesis of population based prevention with individual-level clinical care.” (Kaplan, J. P. et al. (2009). Towards a common definition of global health. The Lancet, 373, p. 1995.)

The competencies were adapted from draft Global Health Essential Core Competencies for Medical Students developed by the Global Health Education Consortium (GHEC), July 2009 (adapted with permission from Dr. Tom Hall and Dr. Timothy Brewer of GHEC). These competencies have been posted on a wiki spaces website at http://globalhealthcompetencies.wikispaces.com/. The competencies are divided into six major categories.

For each competency, please indicate the extent to which you agree that the competency is an essential global health competency for undergraduate or basic nursing students in the Americas, using a 4-point scale: 1=Strongly Disagree; 2=Disagree; 3=Agree; 4=Strongly Agree

Please complete the online survey no later than February 28, 2010. To complete the online survey please log onto the following website:

English survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/G8FWMQ8


If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, or concerns or complaints about the research, you may contact Ms. Sheila Moore. Ms. Moore is the Director of the Office of the Institutional Review Board for Human Use (OIRB) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Ms. Moore may be reached at (205) 934-3789 or 1-800-822-8816. If calling the toll -free number, press the option for “all other calls” or for an operator/attendant and ask for extension 4-3789. Regular hours for the Office of the IRB are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday. You may also call this number in the event the research staff cannot be reached or you wish to talk to someone else.

Thank you in advance for your participation in this survey!! I would also appreciate it if you would forward the survey to other nursing faculty members in the Americas!

Lynda Wilson, RN, PhD, FAAN
Professor and Assistant Dean for International Affairs
Deputy Director, PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for International Nursing