As Japan’s population is aging, our birth rate is declining, and our society is becoming more globalized and digitized, social disparities are producing health disparities. Japan is facing an increasing number of complex health challenges such as abuse, suicide, and elderly adults having to care for other elderly adults. In the face of such social issues, it is the job of public health nurses to protect the health of community residents, schoolchildren, and workers to help make their community safe, just, and fair. The Act on Public Health Nurses, Midwives, and Nurses defines a public health nurse as a “person who provides health guidance as a profession”. However, the fundamental skills required for a public health nurse not only include the ability to provide one-on-one support, but also professional skills that enable them to provide community-level support and draft health promotion policies, and a wide perspective, flexibility, management skills, and professional independence and awareness to support them in carrying out those tasks. Training of public health nurses that can meet the needs of our time and society has a direct impact on the preservation and promotion of national health.
The Japan Association of Public Health Nurse Educational Institutions (JAPHNEI) was founded as an unincorporated organization in 1980 with the aim of improving the quality of public health nurse education. It was incorporated as a General Incorporated Association in 2011. We consider the education of public health nurses to be our social responsibility and are working toward its enrichment. Our mission is to improve public health by enhancing public health nurse educational institutions across Japan and enriching public health nurse education. We work to fulfill this mission through six committees and seven regional blocks.

The Japan Association of Public Health Nurse Educational Institutions (JAPHNEI) was founded as an unincorporated organization in 1980 with the aim of improving the quality of public health nurse education. It was incorporated as a General Incorporated Association in 2011. We consider the education of public health nurses to be our social responsibility and are working toward its enrichment. Our mission is to improve public health by enhancing public health nurse educational institutions across Japan and enriching public health nurse education. We work to fulfill this mission through six committees and seven regional blocks.

For fulfill this mission, our activities are as follows;

1. Enhance and strengthen public health nurse educational institutions
2. Serve as a liaison council for public health nurse educational institutions
3. Train faculty of public health nurse educational institutions
4. Conduct research on topics such as the system and programs of public health nurse education
5. Evaluate and accredit educational programs for public health nurses
6. Collaborate and coordinate with related groups inside and outside Japan
7. Carry out social impact projects to improve public health and promote healthy living
8. Perform other tasks required to fulfill our mission

In 2018, we have worked on conducting systematic career-ladder training courses, systematizing public health nursing skills, examining its methods of education, conducting actual-condition surveys about teaching in member schools based on the evaluation criteria applied in educational courses of public health nurses, publishing an official online journal of the JAPHNEI “Public Health Nursing Education”, promoting dissemination and application of the public health nursing education model core curriculum, examining undergraduate public health nursing education programs and prepared our 40th anniversary commemoration event.

In 2019, we will furthermore continue to work on developing faculty-skills for those in charge of public health nurses’ education, to coordinate promotion of the graduate program, to enhance contents and methods of public health nursing education. In addition, we will promote dissemination of public health nursing education in Japan, and to the international community.

JAPHNEI consider clarification of actual conditions of public health nurses’ education through survey activities, submission of petitions based on these survey activities, dissemination of opinions at Study Panels for public health nurse education as our important activities. Presently, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology are reexamining the curriculum for basic nursing education. As a result, we will be promoting activities to improve the quality of public health nurse education so that public health nurse education based grounded in the science of public health nursing can be further enhanced, in collaboration with the existent basic nursing curriculum.

Furthermore, we will be preparing projects for the 40th anniversary of the establishment of JAPHNEI in 2020.