Lillian Wald
(1867-1940)

LINKS ON THIS PAGE
Overview
Education and Training
Career Path
Selected Achievements
Public Health Practice Today
CDC's Role
Related Links

Overview

Lillian Wald was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1867. She made significant contributions through her establishment of public health nursing. She died in 1940.

Education and Training

• Nursing degree from the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses
  
  
• Postgraduate studies at the Woman's Medical College

Career Path

• Founder and head of the Henry Street Settlement, a neighborhood center that included nurses' training, nursing services, community education programs, and youth clubs
  
  
• Organizer of many district nursing service centers throughout New York

Selected Achievements

• Organized a class in home nursing for the poor immigrant families on the Lower East Side of New York
  
  
• Extended her nursing services staff from the Henry Street Settlement to a local public school, influencing the municipal board of heath to institute a city-wide public school nursing program, the first such program in the world
  
  
• Influenced health insurance companies to provide free visiting public health nurses to their policy holders
  
  
• Founded and became the first president of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, designed to set professional standards for public health nursing
  
  
• Championed the causes of public health nursing, housing reform, suffrage, world peace, and the rights of women, children, immigrants, and working people

Public Health Practice Today

According to the Institute of Medicine, a public health professional is defined as a person educated in public health or a related discipline employed to improve health through a population focus. Public health nurses, environmental health scientists/specialists, health educators, epidemiologists, and health information specialists are expected to be top priority needs in public health in the next few years. Nurses are important to health because they play key roles in protecting the health of all people; are in direct contact with patients, families, and communities from many cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds; and have the credibility and access that enables them to provide scientifically sound information about health issues.

CDC's Role

CDC continues to build on the work done by Lilian Wald.

CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) work with nurses to help ensure the safety and health of the nation. Examples include:

• The American Association of Occupational Health Nurses develops and disseminates environmental health information as part of a cooperative agreement with ATSDR.
  
  
• The American College of Nurse Midwives has partnered with CDC to educate nurse midwives and the public about diethylstilbestrol, safe motherhood, and other issues impacting women.
  
  
• The Working Group on Nurse Staffing and Healthcare-Associated Infections, composed of 12 nurses and others, was convened by CDC to exchange information and research on the association between healthcare-associated infections and nurse staffing and to provide input to the CDC and nursing leadership about steps needed to address this issue.
  
  
• The National Institutes of Health and ATSDR collaboratively organized and hosted a roundtable on nursing and environmental health, convened in August 2002. The roundtable brought together representatives from schools of nursing and public health, state and local health departments, national organizations, and federal agencies. The goal of the roundtable was to identify areas for potential collaborative initiatives to advance environmental health nursing in the areas of research, education, and translation to practice.
  
  
• The CDC works with nurses in state and local health departments to implement disease prevention and health promotion programs on a variety of issues on an ongoing basis.

CDC strives to strengthen the public health system through workforce development, information system development, laboratory improvement, and system research and development. Activities include:

• Delivering distance learning opportunities through the Public Health Training Network
  
  
• Providing opportunities to health professionals in 27 states through the Public Health Leadership Institute
  
  
• Providing state-of-the-art public health laboratory methods through the National Laboratory Training Network
  
  
• Developing regional or country public health management training programs in Nigeria and Vietnam through the Sustainable Management Development Program
  
  
• Linking the public health community to the Internet, providing access to online information, and strengthening information system integration through the Information Network for Public Health Officials

Related Links

American Association of Occupational Health Nurses
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HEC/natorg/aaohn.html

American Nurses Association
http://www.nursingworld.org/(Non-CDC site)

ATSDR Environmental Health Nursing Initiative*
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/EHN/2nursinghomepage.html

CDC/ATSDR Public Health Workforce Development Initiative
http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/owpp/workforcedev.asp

• CDC/ATSDR Strategic Plan for Public Health Workforce Development*
  http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/owpp/docs/WDStrategicPlanFull.pdf
• Monitoring Workforce Composition*
  http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/owpp/WDI_Monitor.asp

CDC Promotes Health through Strong Partnerships
http://www.cdc.gov/about/partners.htm

CDC's Funding Opportunities
http://www.cdc.gov/about/funding.htm

CDC's Prevention Research Centers
http://www.cdc.gov/prc/

CDC's Public Health Practice Program Office
http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/

• About Public Health Practice Program Office*
  http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/about.asp

Diethylstilbestrol (DES) Educational Tools for Nurses
http://www.cdc.gov/des/hcp/resources/tools_nurses.html

Impact of Nurse Staffing on Patient Safety
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/nursing/staffing.htm

Lillian Wald*
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/wald.html

National League for Nursing
http://www.nln.org/index.cfm (Non-CDC site)

Nurse Staffing and Healthcare-Associated Infections*
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/nursing/staffing_ref.htm

Nursing and Environmental Health*
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2003/111-2/extram-speaking.html (Non-CDC site)

Nursing History: Lillian D. Wald*
http://www.nurses.info/personalities_lillian_wald.htm (Non-CDC site)

Wald, Lillian D.*
http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Wald_Lillian_D.html

*Used as a source for this Web page.