Leverage pre-requisite courses to teach bachelor of science in nursing students about social determinants of health.

BACKGROUND

Nurses have frequent opportunities to address social determinants of health (SDOH) in practice. However, many nurses graduate without completing coursework in SDOH, and there remain barriers to incorporating SDOH content into nursing curricula.

PURPOSE

We propose the revision of nursing pre-requisites to include substantive, introductory coursework on SDOH.

METHOD

We explored the history and professional context surrounding nursing's current pre-requisite course expectations. We also performed an assessment of the credit hour requirements and pre-requisite course titles for the nation's 100 top-ranked nursing programs.

FINDINGS

Our assessment revealed that the allocation of credit hour requirements for most programs leaves little room for SDOH-focused credits once nursing coursework starts; also, based on title analyses, foundational coursework on SDOH may be missing from most programs' pre-requisite listings.

DISCUSSION

Nursing pre-requisites should include SDOH content for reasons including the limited availability of credit hours for SDOH-focused electives and the importance of students developing a strong foundation in SDOH before their nursing coursework begins.