Date of Conferral

2-12-2024

Date of Award

February 2024

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Health

Advisor

Howell Sasser

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for public health (PH) emergency preparedness and for the formal training of frontline workers, primarily nurses, on how to manage PH emergencies. The need for the latter was especially evident at U.S. rural community colleges (RCC), a subset of institutions of higher education (IHEs), which, due to a lack of resources, lacked PH-trained nursing faculty members (NFMs). The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover the lived experience of NFMs in RCC in East Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic. The phenomenological theoretical (PT) framework assisted in understanding the lived experience of the NFMs who participated in this study. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 11 NFMs in two RCCs in East Texas. The audio-recorded responses were transcribed, coded, and thematically analyzed to reveal the following five themes: (a) PH services offered, changes, and the impact of the pandemic; (b) PH emergency preparedness; (c) available resources and PH experience with mitigation; (d) social, mental, and psychological effects and challenges; and (e) coping strategies to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The study’s implications for positive social change (PSC) include highlighting the need for training of NFMs on PH emergency skills, developing PH emergency protocols and blueprints, and creating a streamlined PH communication channel in IHEs. It is anticipated that implementing these identified PSCs will result in enhanced PH emergency preparedness in the future. It is also expected that the changes would lead to or result in better and robust PH outcomes during and after the occurrence of potential PH crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

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