Paper
Saturday, July 14, 2007
U.S. Nurses' response to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: a story of coorperation and collaboration
Arlene Keeling, RN, PhD, School of Nursing, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
| Learning Objective #1: describe the collaborative efforts of U.S. nurses in responding to the crisis of the 1918 influenza pandemic |
| Learning Objective #2: discuss how several factors, including the reality of World War I, the nurse shortage and the overwhelming nature of the epidemic influenced the response |
Background: Today the world is facing the threat of pandemic influenza in which two to seven million people could die. Consequently, there is renewed interest in lessons learned from the flu pandemic of 1918 when the world was unprepared for the magnitude of the crisis. In this paper I argue that in the United States physicians and nurses cooperated with the American Red Cross and the United States Public Health Service to respond to the crisis, providing care to thousands of patients—regardless of race, class or creed-- in cities and towns throughout the country. They did so with minimal federal support, relying on local community agencies to establish makeshift hospitals and provide soup kitchens. Communities turned to nurses to visit patients, to teachers to care for family members, and to Red Cross volunteers to make thousands of gauze masks.
Methods: The methods of social history were used in this investigation. Primary sources included documents from the American Red Cross collection, the National Archives Records Administration, Maryland; the Lillian Wald papers at the archival division of the New York Public Library; the Visiting Nurse Association papers at the Chicago History Museum; and medical and nursing journal articles of the era. Secondary sources were also used.
Findings/Conclusions: The intersection of several factors, including the American Red Cross bureaucracy, Congressional appropriations for emergency care, USPHS efforts and the efforts of local community leaders shaped the medical and nursing response to pandemic influenza when it devastated the United States in 1918. Immediate and effective cooperation and collaboration among community leaders, civilians, local physicians and nurses was key to mounting an emergency response to the epidemic.
Funded: Center for Nursing Research, University of Virginia