Nursing Disruption for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals by 2030

Sixteen million nurses, the largest global health care workforce, contribute to achievement of 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through strategic and disruptive research, education, practice, and policy. Responsible for advancing the well-being of individuals, families, communities, and society, nurses are positioned to influence and impact health across the life span. They do this from promoting prenatal health and early childhood success to encouraging healthy aging and end-of-life transitions. They utilize both predictive analytics that prevent rehospitalization and evidence-based practices, such as rocking and kangaroo care, that encourage survival and thriving of preterm newborns. Nurses have a scope of practice that necessitates their presence essentially everywhere. Direct nursing care is delivered in homes, schools, correctional settings, districts, hospitals, helicopters, combat zones, refugee camps, and postnatural disaster or homeless shelters. Nurses advancing system-level health are positioned in health care administration, higher education, international nongovernmental organizations, and governmental offices. Nurse educators and researchers shape tomorrow's practitioners and practice. In general, nurses innovate and generate solutions to improve global health. Shared in this article are strategies for nurses to employ to disrupt the status quo and aggressively contribute to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.