title: Global health issues and challenges.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe issues, challenges and potential strategies in achieving nursing's global preferred future, focused on promoting healthy communities worldwide.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three sets of Arista conferences, a total of 7 conferences, were sponsored by Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. Arista2 and Arista3--the focus of this report--were held in different world regions. A total of 109 invited multi-disciplinary participants identified conditions that affect nursing and health care, strategic actions to address those conditions, and recommendations for the nursing profession. Reports from each conference are synthesized in this executive summary.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Both common and unique themes were identified in various world regions. Key components of the preferred future were professional restructuring and the delivery of holistic, human, and culturally appropriate care. Participants in all regional conferences recommended strategic actions regarding: student-centered educational systems, environments in which nurses practice, the way nurses lead, the knowledge nurses need, the settings in which nurses work, the conditions under which the profession operates, the influence of nurses, and the ways nurses learn.
authors.affiliation: Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, 550 West North Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. nancy@stti.iupui.edu
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dickenson-Hazard
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D005544:Forecasting; D014943:Global Health; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000458:organization & administration; D006292:Health Priorities; D006694:Holistic Health; D006808:Humanism; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D020380:Needs Assessment; D009729:Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000592:standards