As a health professional, political participation and civic engagement are important activities that are beneficial to promoting and protecting public health and addressing healthcare issues at the local, state, and federal levels. Nurses represent the largest group of healthcare providers (approximately 3 million nurses) and collectively have a strong voice. Generally, nurses have numerous qualities and skills (listed below) that are transferrable to the political arena.

• communication skills
• problem-solving skills
• collaboration skills
• conflict management
• assessment skills
• interpersonal skills

In addition to these skills, nurses are viewed as trustworthy and have high occupational prestige and status. Despite a seemingly good fit for nurses to engage in political participation, this profession does not have a high participation rate. Some of the reasons for a lack of political activism are summarized below.

The first issue is related to educational attainment. More education means the more politically active an individual becomes. As nurses progress to advanced degrees, the curriculum focuses more on service-learning and community-based learning and is more likely to promote how civic activism and voluntarism affect social and political policy. A second factor is that the nursing curriculum does not inherently establish positive political participation practices within the curriculum. This, to a degree, may be a reflection of wanting to distance the curriculum from anything “political” due to the nature of the political rhetoric, dysfunction, and polarization that characterizes politics today.

Nurses who are involved in political nursing organizations or forums are more likely to engage in political participation. Nursing organizations encourage low-cost participation in political activities and help develop personal efficacy and the concept of strength in numbers that reinforces the effectiveness of personal political participation.