If you picked up Women’s Health Care in Advanced Practice Nursing, Second Edition, to advance your “learning curve,” I congratulate you. After reading it, I am certain you will agree with me that this text represents a must-read for advanced practice nurses and other providers who deliver health care to women—at any age and at any stage. The importance of this new edition of Women’s Health Care in Advanced Practice Nursing cannot be overstated. It is edited by long-standing noted icons in our field of nursing (Catherine Ingram Fogel and Nancy Fugate Woods), along with new members of the editorial team: Ivy M. Alexander, Versie Johnson-Mallard, and Elizabeth A. Kostas-Polston, each of whom brings unique clinically informed scholarship to the team. As an adult nurse practitioner clinician scholar, Ivy M. Alexander has focused on midlife women’s health and health care, especially menopause and osteoporosis. In her scholarly emphases, Versie Johnson-Mallard, a women’s health nurse practitioner, sheds new light on women’s sexual and reproductive health, including HPV/cancer screening and prevention and behavioral change in response to culturally appropriate educational interventions. In the laboratory as well as the clinic, Elizabeth A. Kostas-Polston, a women’s health nurse practitioner, addresses health-promotion and disease-prevention strategies focused on sexual and reproductive health and HPV-related cancer prevention. This next generation of leaders in women’s health and health care has identified contributors who are scholars in many areas important to women’s health; all are not only knowledgeable, but passionate about women’s health knowledge discovery and its application to transformative health care.

For almost any advancement, I believe that three aspects help move the needle toward positive change: seeing possibilities, framing, and timing. This book is visionary, leading, and timely. Regarding the importance of seeing possibilities, the foundational editors were way ahead of the curve in mainstream health care by focusing on women and their health. Fogel and Woods conceived of the first version of this book in the early 1980s, when women’s health was narrowly defined for health care (it was mostly about the reproductive phase, and biomedicine dominated), and the study of women’s health lacked popularity and certainly was not comprehensive. Regarding the impact of framing for the book, the editors departed from the typical biomedical approach and articulated a framework that speaks directly to us in nursing, focusing on what I call health ecology (women within their environments or what some refer to as the context of their lives). In this new edition of the book, you will be immersed in this frame in Part I. Regarding the influence of timing, with their early grasp on what would come to be a widespread emphasis on women and their health, the editors focus their own discovery and practice scholarship over time, becoming notable experts who are able to interprofessionally network and link with other prominent experts. Thus, the authors of this book represent the “best in class” for conveying contemporary and futuristic perspectives.

Several of the contributing authors to this book have participated, as I do, in the Women’s Health Expert Panel (WHEP) of the American Academy of Nursing. These are peer-nominated and elected nurse scholars from academia and health care practice who focus on applying knowledge to shape policy and clinical practice. They and the other chosen contributors are the thought leaders who are most informed about women’s health and whose analytic thinking is the most informative. Collectively, as members of the WHEP, we have published and spoken publicly on what is crucial to the health of women and critiqued exposés written by those in other disciplines to call attention to missing links within the national women’s health research and clinical services policy agendas. Linking to the transformations spurred by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), attention has swung toward a national prevention strategy as articulated especially by the National Prevention Council, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and the Institute of Medicine. Part II of this book brings to you the most well-versed current perspectives for the application of preventive care (and health-promotion care) for women across the life span. We all know that, generally, women often seek health care for bothersome symptoms associated with chronic physical or emotional conditions, reproductive (pregnancy) or sexual health–related conditions, and the consequences of violence. In Part III, you can update your knowledge on the most prominent women’s health issues that engage health care providers.

I am sure you can sense by my comments in this Foreword that I feel fortunate to be able to urge you to read this most forward-looking book. In today’s health care delivery world, and as epitomized in this book, I am inspired to see that for knowledge to be applied to women’s health, a health ecology frame is becoming increasingly valued. Regional politics aside, everywhere I look, be it in acute or community settings, advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) are being sought after, I believe, because they bring the value added of a holistic approach. No group is better positioned to model the elements brought forward by this book than women’s health APRNs. So whether you are a passionate advocate for, thinking about becoming, on the path to becoming, or actually are an APRN in women’s health, this book should be your provocative and affirming handbook—an accelerant for helping ensure that you are an influential women’s health provider, scholar, leader, policy maker, and spokesperson.