Writing productivity is an essential component of scholarship. Barriers to writing include intrapersonal characteristics, faculty role complexity, and time constraints. Writing groups can increase faculty members' writing, contributing to dissemination of nursing knowledge and advancement of professional nursing. The authors discuss the structure and processes of a writing group that can be adapted by faculty interested in using comentoring to increase their scholarship.

Measuring health status as an indicator of individual, population, and community health is critical in reducing health disparities in populations. The purpose of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Health Status Questionnaire-12 (HSQ-12) Version 2.0, a brief self-reported health status instrument available within the public domain, in a low-income sample (N = 7,793). The internal consistency reliability was .88. Initial and confirmatory factor analysis revealed two factors explaining 67% of the variance, interpreted as super scales of physical and mental health. Second order factor analysis isolated one factor explaining 82% of the variance, interpreted as a total health status. Comparison of subjects with and without disabilities using t tests and the Mann-Whitney U Test showed that the scale, super scale, and total scale scores differentiated significantly. The HSQ-12 is a reliable, valid, and low-cost measure of health status.

Because maternal-child populations have traditionally been a major practice target for public and community health nursing (P/CHN), understanding the health effects of life transition experiences for women and their children is key to the advancement of P/CHN practice and research. To date there are no integrated conceptual models available that examine transition and its health effects in women, and ultimately their children, to single or multiple transitions. In order to help women and those with dependent children transition successfully, strong transition frameworks for nursing are needed. The purpose of this paper is to describe a conceptual model, Health Effects of Life Transition for Women and Children. Major components include the transition experience (developmental, situational, health illness), transition assets/risks (personal, environmental), cognitive-behavioral health indicators of transition (perception of situation, personal efficacy, change readiness, engagement, help-seeking, health behaviors, services use), transition adaptive outcomes of health (health status, intensity of need for nursing care) and competence (transition specific skill acquisition, health management, resourcefulness) and long-term preventive health outcomes (risk reduction, disability prevention, cost savings, mastery, injury prevention). The authors propose that cognitive-behavioral health indicators are foundational to a successful transition experience, are why some people have better transition outcomes than others, and when influenced by P/CHN intervention lead to improved long-term outcomes.

Nebraska Health Connection Access Medicaid's (NHC AM) public health nursing (PHN) population-focused practice model is designed to provide enrollment, education, and PHN case management interventions for the Medicaid Managed Care population. Evaluation and continuous improvement of these interventions are, in part, completed through a collaborative effort between NHC AM and a quality management team at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing. Focus group methodology was used to access non-English-speaking populations to evaluate and strengthen population-focused PHN interventions.

The purpose of this article was to present Nebraska's model of collaboration between public health, public health nursing, medicine, and community partners. Another purpose was to provide exemplars of data trends and outcomes of the multiyear experience with the model. The goal of the collaborative model was to promote the concept of a medical home, improve access to care, and better manage population health for the diverse and vulnerable Medicaid population by implementing a change from fee-for-service to managed care. The vision was to better match population health needs to health services used and to reduce disparities. A unique feature of the model is the use of public health professionals and strategies.