Advancing health equity: Organizational characteristics emphasized by health department nurse lead executives

To compare nurse and non-nurse lead executives' relationship with organizational characteristics supporting performance and health equity in local health departments (LHD).

This was a cross-sectional quantitative study.

The final national sample consisted of 1447 LHDs using the 2019 Profile of Local Health Departments survey.

We used multivariable logistic and negative binomial regression analyses to explore the relationship between nurse versus non-nurse LHD lead executives and involvement in ten organizational characteristics including community health assessment (CHA) and community health improvement plan (CHIP) completion and policy activities related to the social determinants of health (SDOH).

Multivariable logistic regression models showed that, for nurse lead executives, the odds of having completed a CHA is 1.49 times, and the odds of having completed a CHIP is 1.56 times, that of non-nurse lead executives. Negative binomial regression models predicted nurse lead executives, compared to non-nurses, to perform 1.18 times more SDOH-related policy activities.

Results suggest that nurse lead executives are more likely than non-nurses to emphasize assessment in their work and engage in upstream-focused policy activities. As such, they are important partners in work to facilitate health equity.