NUR 452 Module 1 Health Policy Activity: Letter to a Legislator Example

Filter First: A Letter to a State Senator on Lead in School Drinking Water, With a Reflection on My Policy Awareness

Student Name

Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation, Arizona State University

NUR 452: Concepts in Population-Based Health

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Filter First: A Letter to a State Senator on Lead in School Drinking Water, With a Reflection on My Policy Awareness

Part 1: My Stage of Health Policy Awareness

Cohen and colleagues described four stages in nursing's political development: buy-in, when nurses recognize that policy matters; self-interest, when they advocate mainly for nursing's own concerns; political sophistication, when they work on broader health issues; and leading the way, when nurses set the agenda (Cohen et al., 1996). Applied to myself, I am between buy-in and self-interest. I vote and follow nursing news, and I signed a petition on safe staffing last year, but I had never written to a legislator about a public health issue. This assignment moves me toward the third stage, using nursing knowledge to advocate for the public rather than for the profession.

Part 2: Finding My Legislators

I used my state legislature's district lookup and the federal lookup on congress.gov, entering my home address, to identify my state senator, my two state representatives, my member of the U.S. House and my two U.S. senators. I chose to write to my state senator because the issue is funded through the state's school facilities budget and because she sits on the education committee.

Part 3: The Letter

Dear Senator [name],

As a constituent and a nursing student at Arizona State University, I ask for your support in funding filtered drinking water stations at schools whose water tests positive for lead.

Children's developing brains are especially sensitive to lead. A pooled analysis of seven international studies found that intellectual function declined measurably as blood lead rose, and that the steepest declines occurred at the lowest levels studied, below the thresholds once considered safe (Lanphear et al., 2005). Public health agencies now state that no safe blood lead level in children has been identified (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024).

Schools are a common source of exposure that families cannot control. Older buildings may have lead in pipes, solder or fixtures, and water that sits overnight or over weekends can pick up lead. Testing finds the problem, but testing alone does not protect a child who drinks from a fountain the next morning.

A "filter first" approach installs certified filtered bottle-filling stations and replaces or shuts off outlets that test high, so children have safe water while longer repairs are planned. I respectfully ask you to support a grant program, within the school facilities budget, that pays for filtered stations in schools whose tests exceed the action level, with priority for elementary schools and schools in older buildings.

As a future nurse, I will see children's health shaped by conditions they did not choose. Clean water at school is one we can fix. I appreciate your attention to this request and your work for our district. I would be glad to share the research I have cited.

Respectfully,

[Student name]

Nursing student, Arizona State University

Part 4: Why This Issue

I chose lead in school water because it is preventable, because the evidence on harm is strong and because the solution is concrete enough for a legislator to fund. It also fits population health: one decision protects every child in a school.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). About childhood lead poisoning prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/lead-prevention/about/index.html

Cohen, S. S., Mason, D. J., Kovner, C., Leavitt, J. K., Pulcini, J., & Sochalski, J. (1996). Stages of nursing's political development: Where we've been and where we ought to go. Nursing Outlook, 44(6), 259-266. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0029-6554(96)80081-9

Lanphear, B. P., Hornung, R., Khoury, J., Yolton, K., Baghurst, P., Bellinger, D. C., Canfield, R. L., Dietrich, K. N., Bornschein, R., Greene, T., Rothenberg, S. J., Needleman, H. L., Schnaas, L., Wasserman, G., Graziano, J., & Roberts, R. (2005). Low-level environmental lead exposure and children's intellectual function: An international pooled analysis. Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(7), 894-899. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.7688