Change in health policy making will only come when nurses and nurse researchers themselves become policy leaders. This book is intended to help stimulate the reader to embrace the idea of shaping health policy through nursing research. It provides both a conceptual orientation to science/research shaping health policy as well as an operational approach to strategies for linking research to policy and influencing policy makers at the organizational, community, state, national, and international levels. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, a set of chapters provide a context for science shaping policy, an introduction to models and strategies through which research can inform policy making, and an examination of the relationship of science policy to health policy. The three models that integrate evidence in the policy-making process, where research can be used to inform policy, are: data-driven policymaking, evidence-informed health policy, and the policy cycle ― moving from issue to policy. Understanding the association of public policy to science policy and science policy to programs of research and scholarship should be an expectation of active scientists and for scientist education. Part II outlines a series of nursing research programs that have had an impact on health policy at multiple levels. Separate chapters explore the translation of personal challenges to public policy, shaping HIV/AIDS prevention policy for the minorities, promotion of childhood health, improvement of end-of-life care, improvement of health outcomes and reduction of costs for chronically ill older adults, and saving lives and improving patient care outcomes. The third part summarizes the valuable lessons learned from senior nurse investigators recounting their experiences and addresses future directions for nursing research in shaping health policy.