Aim: To emphasize that nurses need to be fully protected to carry out their vital role, particularly during pandemics, yet the lack of a standardized and systematic collection of high-quality disaggregated data on nurses health inhibits our ability to assess this within and across countries.
Background: Nurses are the largest workforce group in the health sector, yet only 59 countries worldwide report on nurse COVID-19 infections and related deaths, and the standardized, systematic collection of disaggregated health data is not yet in place.
Sources of evidence: Medline, International Council of Nurses, World Health Organization, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the experiences of the authors.
Discussion: Inconsistent recording and definitions of nurses, precarious and informal employment conditions, limited transparent and reliable data, lack of mass testing and long-standing structural issues and biases have affected nursing for too long.
Conclusions: These issues are reflected in the limited capacity of many national public health information systems to collect, monitor and report on the health of the largest group of health workers. Political will, accountability and public data transparency at different levels are essential to adequately protect nurses at work.
Implications for nursing practice, and nursing and health policy: Building on current momentum in the nursing field, immediate political action is required to strengthen existing nursing and midwifery policies, standards and regulatory capacity, as well as existing public health services and information and surveillance systems. The generation of up-to-date, context-specific knowledge is needed to inform and monitor political decisions related to the protection of nurses, and the improvement of their employment conditions, as well as to strengthen accountability for these areas at various levels.
Keywords: COVID-19; accountability; health information system; nursing; nursing policy; public health.
© 2021 International Council of Nurses.