Ongoing Studies

Designing the Nurse-Community Partnership Model of Care

The Nurse–Community Partnership (NCP) Model of Care is being developed through a community-engaged design process involving public health nurses, community-based organizations, and national advisors. The study aims to create a practical, evidence-informed model that supports sustained collaboration between public health nurses and community partners to address the social, environmental, and structural conditions shaping health and health inequities. Using Intervention Mapping, the team is identifying priority needs and outcomes, defining the changes required for effective partnership, and co-designing strategies, tools, and implementation guidance. The resulting model will be prepared for pilot testing in local public health practice.

Collaborators: Public Health Madison and Dane County and the following community-based organizations: Blacks for Political and Social Action of Dane County, Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness, Wisconsin Doulas of Color Collective, Wisconsin EcoLatinos, and Wisconsin Green Muslims.

Identifying the Capacity Needs of Public Health Nurses to Promote Planetary Health Through Community Partnerships

The goal of this study is to inform the development of an intervention that supports public health nurses in partnering with affected communities to promote planetary health by identifying the internal and external factors that influence their capacity to undertake this work. This study has the following aims:

1. Describe the internal facilitators and barriers (e.g., values, knowledge, and skills) to enhancing and sustaining nurse-community partnerships for planetary health.
2. Identify external facilitators and barriers (e.g., organizational, community, policy, and cultural factors) to enhancing and sustaining public health nurses’ abilities to promote planetary health through community partnerships.

Adaptation of the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) Measuring Public Health Nursing’s Capacity to Promote Planetary Health Equity.

The purpose of this study is to adapt the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS) by developing new items to measure public health nurses’ knowledge of and confidence in promoting planetary health equity. This study will proceed in four phases: (1) content validity testing with experts, (2) preliminary testing with a small sample of public health nurses (PHNs), (3) exploratory and confirmatory analyses of the adapted instrument with a pilot sample of PHNs, and (4) large-scale fielding to conduct more comprehensive psychometric testing, including reliability and measurement invariance. The successful completion of these aims will provide the nursing discipline with novel, validated survey items for planetary health equity.

The School of Nursing Research and Scholarship Committee Internal Research Award funds this study.

Secondary Analysis of 2021 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS)

This secondary analysis examines the organizational characteristics that support public health nurses in governmental public health agencies who report a strong orientation toward environmental justice-related work. Drawing on data from the 2021 PH WINS, the study focuses on nurses’ reported knowledge of and confidence in their ability to promote environmental justice. The analysis will consider how individual, organizational, and contextual factors may relate to these orientations and examine implications for workforce development, training, and retention.

Nurse-Community Partnerships with More-Than-Humans: A Longitudinal, Collaborative, Critical Autoethnography

The goal of this project is to explore how nurses can partner with more-than-human communities to promote personal and collective wellness, planetary health, and multispecies justice. Collaborative critical autoethnography is a methodological approach to qualitative inquiry and empowerment that facilitates solidarity and resilience in justice work. Procedures for this project include critical praxis, participatory inquiry, and relationship-building with local Earth systems (i.e., land, water, air, and multispecies). Photovoice is the primary method for reflection and deepening a sense of place. Photos and reflective journaling will be used to help illustrate these lessons. All activities will take place outside. This project is a collaborative effort among three planetary health nurse researchers conducting autoethnographic work simultaneously, with biweekly sharing, interaction, and the intention to distill a set of common themes and narratives.

Collaborators: Robin Evans-Agnew, PhD, RN, and De-Ann Sheppard, PhD, RN.

LeClair, J., Sheppard, D. A., & Evans-Agnew, R. (2024). Getting to the heart of the planetary health movement: nursing research through collaborative critical autoethnography. Challenges, 15(4), 46. doi: 10.3390/challe15040046.

Recently Completed Studies

Nurse-Community Partnership Strategies to Address Structural and Social Determinants of Health: A Scoping Review

The goal of this scoping review was to describe the findings, research range, and literature gaps regarding the community partnership strategies nurses use to address the structural and social determinants of health and promote health equity. The knowledge gleaned from this scoping review may serve to identify evidence-based and promising practices in nurse-community partnerships.

Collaborators: Rose Atkinson, BSN, RN; Sarah Dobbins, DNP, RN; Katie Peterson, BSN, RN; and Palee Yang, BSN, RN, with the Community-based Public Health Nursing Team at Public Health Madison and Dane County.

Climate Justice Perspectives and Strategies Implemented by Public Health Nurses and Their Community Partners

The purpose of this study was to examine effective public health practices that advance climate justice and population health by describing how public health nurses and their community partners conceptualize climate justice, and how their experiences can inform the partnership strategies and processes they utilize to advance climate justice.

Funding for this study was received from the Midwest Nursing Research Society (Dissertation Research Award Founder’s Circle), Sigma Theta Tau International (2021 Sigma Small Grants), the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing (2023 Student Research Award), Global Health Institute (Henry Anderson III Graduate Student Award), and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Center for Culture, History, and the Environment (2022 Graduate Student Research and Travel Award).

LeClair, J., Van Aartsen, A., & Bekemeier, B. (2026). Public health nurse-community partnership outcomes for climate justice. Environmental Justice. ePrint. doi: 10.1177/19394071261471000.

LeClair J., Krainak K., Steege L., & Zahner S.J. (2026). “Working deeply with the community”: nurse-community partnership processes to promote climate justice. Public Health Nursing. 43(2). 310-320. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.70044.

LeClair, J., Dudek, A., Zahner, S.J. (2025). Climate justice perspectives and experiences of nurses and their community partners. Nursing Inquiry, 32 (1). doi: 10.1111/nin.12690.

LeClair, J., Dudek, A., Zahner, S.J. (2024). Climate justice strategies implemented by public health nurses and their community partners. Journal of Advanced Nursing. doi: 10.1111/jan.16598.

Public Health Nurse Partnerships for Environmental Justice and Heart Health in a Black Community

There is a robust correlation between environmental exposures and unjust cardiovascular outcomes among Black populations. Community-based public health nurses (CBPHNs) can effectively implement environmental justice interventions to promote heart health. An interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers and CBPHNs aimed to gain insights into local variables associated with these injustices to inform CBPHN partnerships with Black residents to promote heart health. Using a community-based participatory action research approach, a mixed-methods survey explored the relationship between perceived environmental injustice, stress, and health among Black adults, as well as their concerns about local environmental health hazards.

Collaborators: Rose Atkinson, BSN, RN, Sarah Dobbins, DNP, RN, Katie Peterson, BSN, RN, and Palee Yang, BSN, RN, with the Community-based Public Health Nursing Team at Public Health Madison and Dane County.

LeClair, J., Kunkul, F., Olson-Williams, H., Atkinson, A., Hughes, S., Peterson, K., Yang, P., Oakley, L. (2024). Public health nurse partnerships for environmental justice and heart health in a Black community. Environmental Justice. ePrint. doi: 10.1089/env.2024.0023

Critical Environmental Justice Nursing for Planetary Health: A Guiding Framework

Personal and planetary environmental justice has become a driving force for innovation in nursing science. The purpose of our Critical Environmental Justice Nursing for Planetary Health Framework is to guide this work by applying critical theory to the way we conceptualize the root causes of environmental injustices. The framework calls for more ethical responses to injustices and challenges the biohierarchical belief that nonmales, non-Whites, and nonhumans are lesser beings that can be made profitable. This response requires nurse leaders who are well-prepared in the science and practice of planetary health, as well as in the ontologies and epistemologies of regeneration and transformation.

This study was funded by the Forest County Potawatomi Foundation, the University of Wisconsin–Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Center for Culture, History, and the Environment.

LeClair J., Luebke J. M. & Oakley L. D. (2021). Critical environmental justice nursing for planetary health: a guiding framework. Advances in Nursing Science, 48(4), doi: 10.1097/ANS.0000000000000398

Building Kincentric Awareness in Planetary Health Education: A Rapid Evidence Review

The current definition of planetary health has been criticized for its hierarchical and anthropocentric focus, which prioritizes the importance of human health outcomes over those of other beings in the biosphere. Kincentricity is a concept from Indigenous scholarship that supports an obligation to live in harmony with all kin. A paradigm shift from the anthropocentric to the kincentric perspective would align with health professions such as nursing, which recognizes human beings’ health as emerging from the environment and being integral to one’s spiritual nature. In 2020, the Planetary Health Alliance developed a draft Planetary Health Education Framework to guide education and practice. To help align the framework with Indigenous Knowledge Systems, a rapid evidence review was conducted on kincentric approaches to planetary health education across multiple databases.

LeClair J. (2021). Building kincentric awareness in planetary health education: a rapid evidence review. Creative Nursing, 27(4), 6. doi: 10.1891/cn-2021-0009.

Nursing Strategies for Environmental Justice: A Scoping Review

This scoping review describes the types of strategic actions that nurses take to promote environmental justice through research, education, advocacy, and practice, as reported in peer-reviewed literature.

LeClair, J., Watts, T., & Zahner, S. (2021). Nursing strategies for environmental justice: A scoping review. Public Health Nursing, 38(2), 296-308. doi: 10.1111/phn.12840.