Now more than ever, the definition of family is being challenged. There is still no universally agreed upon definition of family (Kaakinen, Hanson, and Denham, 2010). Community health nurses and family nurses struggle on a daily basis with the conflict between the narrow traditional legal definition of family used in the health care system and by social policy makers and the broader term used by the family. Family, as defined and implemented in the health care system, has traditionally been based on using the legal notions of relationships such as biological/genetic blood ties, and contractual relationships such as adoption, guardianship, or marriage. However, the family system and family nurses use the following broader definition of family: Family refers to two or more individuals who depend on one another for emotional, physical, and/or financial support. The members of the family are self-defined” (Hanson, 2005).

Today more than ever, nurses need to adopt the open definition described above because the families they work with have a wide variety of family structures. Nurses who work with the people in the individual’s every day world have a higher likelihood of helping them to achieve better health outcomes.

A common pitfall of the home health care system is the lack of communication and information in the transfer of clients between agencies that often occurs in interventions and health outcomes (Daily and Newfield, 2005) that frequently result in hospital admission or readmission. Nationally, the number of home health care clients who were admitted to the hospital between 2002 and 2006 was 28.3% (AHCRQ, 2008). The majority of these hospital admissions in home health care clients occurred within 7 days of admission to the home health agency (Vasquez, 2008). Approximately 18% of all Medicare hospitalizations result in readmissions within 30 days of discharge (Hackbarth, 2009). These hospital readmissions accounted for $15 billon, $12 billion of which was estimated to be preventable (Hackbarth, 2009).

In addition to a lack of communication between health care systems, there are communication issues between health care providers within the community agencies, such as incomplete or missing documentation that result from rushed assessments. Rushed procedures and failure to follow the plan of action and standards of care are known causes of hospital readmissions (Vasquez, 2008). It is crucial that home health care staff have current updates on evidence-based practice, standards of care (Hogue and Fairnot, 2006), and interventions to ensure quality health outcomes. Community health nurses have a significant role in working with multiple health care systems to improve communication and design protocols that are evidence-based to improve the quality of care and the health of the home health population (Ventura et al, 2010).

Nurses must develop and hone excellent negotiation skills because they spend a significant amount of time arranging for limited services for their underinsured and uninsured clients and families. In working with families, communication and teaching would be more effective if hours of service matched the times of day when family members, specifically the family care provider, can attend appointments. Bringing a companion to office visits benefits communication (Wolff et al, 2009; Wolff and Roter, 2008) enhances shared decision making (Clayman et al, 2005) and improves the sharing of information (Eggly et al, 2006). Involving family in the care of the client improves self management of health care, results in fewer medication errors (Kinnersley et al, 2007; Wolff et al, 2009), and improves health outcomes (Weinberg et al, 2007).

Nurses must be adept at working among health care systems to find resources and services for the large population of uninsured clients and families. As of 2008, there were 46.6 million Americans without health insurance (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009). Although the number of uninsured children is the lowest since 1987, the fastest growing group of uninsured is young adults (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009). In addition, for those who have health care insurance, these companies traditionally base reimbursement and coverage on the individual’s disease or health problem and not the family unit or for informal family caregiving (Kaakinen, Hanson, and Denham, 2010).

The lack of insurance makes finding adequate services for clients and families difficult. In some areas federal and state funding for care in health clinics is free or available for a minimal fee. However, because the number of primary health care clinics is limited, care is provided on a lottery based solely on the number of volunteer health care providers working that day in the clinic. Many clinics are program based, such as family planning clinics, sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics, and immunizations clinics. Thus, it is difficult to meet the needs of the uninsured or underinsured populations.

These challenges are pervasive and serious. Nurses help clients and families negotiate and maneuver through the health care system. They must work closely with the family to remove barriers and provide services and resources that enhance the families’ abilities to provide quality care to family members. To successfully address these challenges, the community health nurses must integrate principles of family nursing with those of community/public health (see Evidence-Based Practice and Levels of Prevention boxes).

Marriage, although still a popular American ideal, has assumed a forerunner: cohabitation. Cohabitation is a couple living together who are having a sexual relationship without being married. The probability that Americans will marry by age 40 is over 80% (Goodwin, McGill, and Chandra, 2009); however, cohabitation has become commonplace with a majority of young people projected to cohabitate at least once (Bumpass and Lu, 2000). Currently cohabitation rates are reported to be about 9% for men and women between the ages of 15 and 44 (Goodwin, Mosher, and Chandra, 2010).

Casper, Hagga, and Jayasundera (2010) suggest that people cohabitate for three reasons: some cohabitants would marry but do not for economic reasons; others seek a more equalitarian relationship; and others use cohabitation as a trial period to negotiate and assess whether to marry. Younger cohabitants are more likely to view their relationship as a prelude to marriage (King and Scott, 2005). This view is common, with a 65% chance of cohabitation transitioning to marriage within the first 5 years (Goodwin, Mosher, and Chandra, 2010). Phillips and Sweeney (2005) suggest that there is an ethnic factor in the meaning of cohabitation, with whites viewing cohabitation as a trial marriage and African Americans and Hispanic Americans viewing cohabitation as a substitute for marriage. In 2000 Seltzer suggested that, with the aging of the population, cohabitation may be of increasing importance among older persons. In 2005 King and Scott found that older adults enjoy relationships of higher quality and perceived stability despite having fewer plans to marry and are more likely than younger cohabitants to view their relationship as an alternative to marriage.

Different factors were associated with duration of marriage and cohabitation. Duration of marriage was associated with two factors: age of first marriage and timing of first child. Marriage at a younger age had a lower probability of the marriage lasting 10 years. Women who gave birth 8 months or more after the marriage began compared with women who had no first birth during the marriage had a 79% chance versus a 34% chance of the marriage lasting 10 years. Education was a factor in both men and women’s duration of cohabitation, with lower education being associated with longer cohabitation (Goodwin, McGill, and Chandra, 2010).

As cohabitation increases, ensuring sexually transmitted disease (STD) reduction and family planning services becomes essential. The most frequently reported infectious disease in the United States is chlamydia (CDC, 2010). In 2008 more than 1.2 million cases of chlamydia were reported. Women between the ages of 15 and 19 years of age and minority women are at the highest risk (CDC, 2010). Untreated chlamydia can cause severe and costly reproductive health problems. A model collaborative program is the Region X Infertility Prevention Project (2000), which aims to control chlamydia through collaborative efforts of STD and family planning providers and public health laboratories. A comprehensive approach to STD prevention that includes screening, treatment of infected partners, and behavioral interventions with a focus on reducing racial disparities is an important aspect of providing community health (CDC, 2010). See the Healthy People 2020 boxes on Family Planning and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Two additional trends in marriage are worth noting: increased age for first marriage and increased number of interracial marriages. The mother’s age at first birth has increased by 3.6 years between 1970 and 2006, making the average age 25 rather than 21.4 (Mathews and Hamilton, 2009). This may be influenced by educational attainment. Although men have a higher rate of attaining college degrees than women, that number is narrowing as data on younger cohorts show higher attainment for women than men, suggesting that the majority of people with college degrees may be women in the future (Crissey, 2009).

Later marriages can lead to older women becoming pregnant along with all the joys and complications attributed to these pregnancies in later life, such as infertility, STDs, and an increase in all obstetrical complications. Interracial marriage is another growing phenomenon in the United States. Lee and Edmonston (2005) report that interracial marriages increased from less than 1% of all married couples in 1970 to more than 5% in 2000.

Since 1965 when the Immigration Act abolished the national origins quota, the United States has become more diversified. In 1960, 75% of foreign-born people living in the United States were born in Europe; by 2007, 80% of foreign-born were born either in Latin America or Asia (Grieco, 2010). The current emphasis in family demographics is the race or ethnicity of the American family, which has weighty implications for community health nursing (Crissey, 2009; Davis and Bauman, 2009; Dye, 2008a,b). Of the 281.4 million counted in the 2000 Census, 75.1% were white, 12.1% were Black or African American, 0.9% were American Indian and Alaska Native, 3.6% were Asian, and 0.1% were Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander. The Hispanic population was 12.5%. For the first time, Hispanics outnumbered African Americans in this country; the Hispanic population reached 41.3 million people as of July 1, 2004 (Bernstein, 2005).

Race and ethnicity has implications for American women’s fertility, educational attainment, and participation in government assistance programs. Family Planning and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) are two federally funded public health programs that require community health nurses to understand the implications of race and ethnicity on public health services. For example, in some instances a woman attending a public health clinic for family planning services may be accompanied by her husband who is the only adult family member who speaks English. If adequate interpretative services are not available, the husband may attempt to complete the medical history form and it may or may not be accurate, thus impacting the services provided. This requires community health nurses being knowledgeable about the race and ethnic composition of their community and providing adequate staffing for the major languages spoken in that community.

Fertility rates differ by race and ethnicity. Hispanic women have the highest fertility rates with 74 births per 1000; American Indian and Alaska Native women were next with 68 births per 1000, followed by African-American women with 58 births per 1000; Asian women had 54 births per 1000 and white non-Hispanic women had the lowest rates of 50 births per 1000 (Dye, 2008a). Foreign-born Hispanic women who were not citizens had statistically higher fertility rates than their native naturalized counterparts between 20 and 29 years of age.

Not all cultures value limiting the number of children in a family, and nurses may be challenged to understand these values and to provide services where the woman assumes the value of limiting the number of children where the husband does not. For example, a Hispanic woman comes to the public health clinic for family planning services. It is not uncommon for the husband to come in at the end of the week to pay for those services. If the wife is on birth control, such as Depo, but does not want her husband to know, itemizing services on the receipt would present a problem. The nurse needs to understand these changing values and facilitate the family planning services requested by the woman without violating her confidentiality.

Divorce can be said to be increasing, declining, or remaining stable, depending on the time referent. Divorce rates in the 1970s and into the mid-1980s climbed to 5.0 per 1000, but around 1985 through 2000 they began to decline to 4.0 per 1000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008). In 2001 the median length of a marriage for divorcing couples was 8 years for men and women overall (Kreider, 2005). Lowenstein (2005) identified the following factors that lead to divorce: women’s independence in the marriage, money issues, poor education and social skills, inability to manage conflict, sexual incompatibility, alcohol and substance abuse, risk-taking behaviors, and religious issues. Lowenstein summarized the following effects on the divorced family:

The economic hardships of divorce and cohabitating dissolution are similar (Avellar and Smock, 2005). These economic hardships of cohabitating dissolution are unequally distributed, with white women faring better than African-American or Hispanic women (Avellar and Smock, 2005).

The characteristics of people who divorce vary by race, religion, and educational level. The divorce rate for African Americans is higher than for whites, Hispanic Americans, or Asian and Pacific Islander Americans (Kreider, 2005; Teachman, Tedrow, and Scanzioni, 2000). Protestants have a higher divorce rate than Catholics. Women and men with at least a bachelor’s degree are less likely to divorce than those who have a high school degree or less (Kreider, 2005). Phillips and Sweeney (2005) found that whites who cohabitated with their spouse before marriage were at a greater risk of divorce than African Americans or Hispanic Americans. Premarital conception was a risk factor for divorce in African Americans who cohabitated before marriage. Nativity (American born) was a risk factor for divorce in Mexican Americans who cohabitated before marriage.

Divorce and dissolution of cohabitation come to the attention of the nurse mostly with respect to the 40% of children projected to live in parent-cohabitating families before they reach adulthood. Since women are still the dominant custodial parent, the economic adverse effects they suffer are also experienced by the children. Nurses need to ensure that health care services are available for these families.

Until the 1970s, bereavement, the leading cause of remarriage, was replaced with divorce (Coleman, Ganong, and Fine, 2000). More than 50% of divorced people remarry (Kreider, 2005). Whereas gender was previously a leading factor in remarriage rates, the person who initiated the divorce has been found to be a more significant factor (Sweeney, 2002). That is, women who initiate divorce are more likely to remarry than women who were the non-initiators. The probability of remarriage for white women is 58%, for Hispanic women is 44%, and for African-American women is 32% (CDC, 2002).

For middle-aged families, this results in more blended families and issues of childcare. Although some persons remarry more than once, remarriages by adults more than 40 years of age may be more stable than first marriages (Coleman, Ganong, and Fine, 2000).

It is imperative that the nurse keep informed and up to date about demographic trends pertaining to families and all types of households. Such knowledge is essential so that nurses can identify high-risk populations, such as children living in poverty, children of working mothers who care for themselves (latchkey children), and older adult women living alone. Changing demographics have implications for planning health, developing community resources, and becoming politically active, so that scarce funds and resources can be made available for health services needed by the growing and diverse population. Demographic data are usually updated every 5 years. In 2010 a new census was taken of the U.S. population.