The Journal of School Nursing2025, Vol. 41(5) 533–534© The Author(s) 2025Article reuse guidelines:sagepub.com/journals-permissionsDOI: 10.1177/10598405251363282journals.sagepub.com/home/jsn
In June/July 2025, I attended the Annual Conference of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN). Although I’ve participated in this conference intermittently for over 20 years, this was my first time attending as the editor of The Journal of School Nursing (JOSN). This new role gave me a fresh perspective—not only as a school nurse researcher, but also as the steward of the leading journal dedicated exclusively to school nursing research. Experiencing the conference through this lens left me energized and deeply optimistic about the future of school nursing research. I was inspired by the growing number of school nurses, leaders, academicians, and researchers who are deeply committed to advancing the knowledge base and strengthening the evidence needed to improve school nursing practice, the school community and the well-being of our nation’s youth.
The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) identified school health as a strategic priority for nursing research funding (NINR, 2024). Our school nursing community has long understood the importance of 1) attending to health in the communities in which our youth reside (i.e., schools), 2) acknowledging the need to address health at the systems level (i.e., population health), and 3) recognizing that context is a powerful influencer of health outcomes (i.e., social determinants). This federal-level emphasis presents an important opportunity to accelerate school nursing research and highlight the vital role school nurses play not only in managing chronic conditions, but also in primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention efforts. JOSN applauded these developments and encouraged school nurses to capitalize on them through advanced education, original research, evidencebased projects, and collaborative initiatives (Bergren, 2025).
At the same time, NASN has revised and restructured its research and evidence-based practice priorities to better align with its own strategic goals and the current state of school nursing science (NASN, 2025). NASN now prioritizes research focused on the school nurse workforce, funding for school nurse services, student well-being and data and school nursing outcomes. Specifically, NASN supports research and scholarship in the following areas:
School nursing workforce
Healthy work environment
Economics of school nursing services
Health equity and social determinants of health
School violence, disasters, and emergency response
Effectiveness and outcomes of school nursing practice
Implementation of evidence into school nursing practice
These research priorities align closely with NINR’s guiding lenses—health disparities, social determinants of health, population and community health, prevention and health promotion, and systems and models of care (NINR, n.d.)—as well as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s The Future of Nursing Report (NASEM, 2021)—all of which support its broader strategic focus on school health. I was especially encouraged by the strong presence of school nurses at the recent NINR/OBSSR virtual meeting, Advancing Nursing Research to Support Healthy School Environments for All. The event highlighted NINR’s dedication to funding research that fosters healthy school environments and helps prevent chronic disease. It also offered a forum to identify research gaps and elevate the visibility and value of school nurses in these efforts. The message from school nurse researchers, educators, and practitioners at the meeting was unmistakable: school nurses are critical partners in advancing the science. Who better than school nursing experts to develop research questions that are practice-relevant? Who better to translate research and evidence into meaningful practice? And who better to co-create and evaluate feasible, sustainable interventions that improve care delivery in the schools?
What I witnessed at the NASN conference was a vibrant community committed to pushing forward the science, knowledge, and practice of school nursing to better serve our youth. I urge readers to maintain that level of enthusiasm and passion, leverage the opportunities in the current research milieu to collaborate and elevate school nursing research. Take time to review NASN’s research priorities (https://www.nasn.org/research/research-priorities), and consider what kind of scholarly impact you will make—whether through original research, literature reviews, quality improvement initiatives, evidence-based practice projects, or policy reports. These are all valid and valuable forms of inquiry supported by JOSN.
Mayumi A. Willgerodt, PhD, MPH, RN, FNASN, FAAN Editor, The Journal of School Nursing
Mayumi A. Willgerodt https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9874-3739
Bergren, M. D. (2025). The national institute of nursing research prioritizes school health. The Journal of School Nursing, 41(2), 195–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/10598405251316132
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). (2021). The future of nursing 2020–2030: Charting a path to achieve health equity. The National Academies Press.
National Association of School Nurses. (2025). The National Association of School Nurses Research and Evidence-based Practice Priorities. https://www.nasn.org/research/researchpriorities.
National Institute of Nursing Research. (n.d.). Research lenses. https://www.ninr.nih.gov/research/research-lenses.
National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR). (2024). School health—announcing NINR’s second strategic imperative. https://www.ninr.nih.gov/newsandevents/news/school-health-announcing-ninrs-second-strategic-imperative.
