Final answer:
True, nursing theories do recognize patterns in health and illness within communities and their relationship with the environment. The false statement among the choices is that communities exist within populations, which is the opposite of the ecological hierarchy.
Step-by-step explanation:
Most nursing theories do indeed acknowledge that communities and populations can exhibit a pattern of responses in health and illness, and they explore relationships among such patterns and the environment or social context. Therefore, the statement that recognizes this interaction is true.
When analyzing the different choices provided in the other section of the question, the false statement is b) "Communities exist within populations which exist within ecosystems." This is incorrect because populations exist within communities, not the other way around. In ecology, a population is a group of individuals of the same species living in a particular area, and those populations together make up a community. These communities, along with the abiotic factors, form an ecosystem.