Community-based Healthy Life Plan
I. About the Plan
1. Basis: Approval letter Tai-Chin-Zi No. 0910027097 from the Executive Yuan on May 31st, 2002.
2. Environment forecast
2.1 Medical information and technology will be globalized and public awareness will rise.
2.2 Acute medical system will no longer satisfy the aging population and the increase of chronic diseases.
2.3 In the post-industrialization age, peoples education level will generally increase; and the prevalence of information will raise the autonomy of the public and community.
2.4 The demands of international trade and travel will continue to increase accompanied with new infectious diseases that will keep springing up causing global alerts.
2.5 As society progresses, the misuse of medical technology or drug dependence (drug addiction) will produce many new and different kinds of hazards.
2.6 In the face of global challenges, local experiences do suffice to become a strength and value for navigating world trends.
2.7 Through the active participation of people in the communities, different expertise can be integrated to propel innovative activities and healthy public policies so that a healthy community can be created together as a response to the WHOs Healthy Cities Project.
3. Problem evaluation and analysis
3.1 There is too much reliance on advanced medical information and technology. Patients tend to go to large hospitals, thereby making unnecessary consumptions and incurring technology-induced hazards.
3.2 There is too much inclination to use the institutionalized acute medical system to accommodate the increasing aging population and chronic diseases, causing a heavy financial burden on the government.
3.3 Treating patients that require holistic care and improved medical care as if they have acute diseases has continued to undermine the doctor-patient relationship.
3.4 In an age where international activities are rampant and new diseases on constantly on the rise, Taiwan is in great need of autonomous community-based capability for disease prevention and treatment.
3.5 Currently, the government and community have neither integrated their capabilities nor upheld a platform for information sharing. Therefore, hazards from the misuse of health foods and medical drug dependence (drug addiction) cannot be prevented effectively.
3.6 The commercialization of medical services is endangering the national health insurance (NHI). Taiwans health system today is in need of pervasive primary medical care and the rebuilding of health care.
3.7 An important direction of development is to exhibit the communities independent strength, promote community consciousness so that the communities can become the platform for integrating local and other system resources and enable connection with the international community.
4. Current strategies, policies and projects
4.1 Unilateral, top-down conventional method for providing hygiene education and health information:
4.1.1 Public health centers are to provide hygiene education to community residents.
4.1.2 Utilize mass media to reinforce promotion of health information.
4.1.3 The Department of Health or public health bureaus are to undertake large health promotion activities.
4.1.4 Print promotional flyers, leaflets and videos.
4.2 Set up Community hygiene promotion committees in local public health centers to coordinate the publics efforts.
4.3 The public health centers are to provide health management to community households.
4.4 Some health issues can be duly promoted with medical institutions, e.g. health education on issues of family planning and maternal and infant hygiene can be conducted with Gynecology and Obstetrics clinics; diabetes prevention and treatment can be carried out by hospitals that have subsidiary diabetic patient health promotion institutions.
4.5 The Department of Health has been promoting the Building Healthy Communities Program since 1999, and the Building Healthy Indigenous Tribes and Off-shore Communities Program since 2000, and has now set up 302 community health-building centers as of September 2003 to integrate and effectively utilize community resources.
4.6 In recent years, the Department has facilitated the building of healthy communities by promoting various projects. These include exploring models for building healthy communities by oral history, smoke-free schools, healthy cities, health promoting schools and university-community alliance.
5. Current strategies, policies and project implementation review
5.1 Communicating health information and hygiene education alone has not changed peoples lifestyles, let alone develop communities autonomies and initiatives to act.
5.2 The community health promotion committee cannot function fully as the public health centers are still in charge of most of the affairs. Residents in the community are merely receiving services. The committee has not been able to consolidate community consensus and effectively utilize community organizational strength, let alone getting the attention.
5.3 The services of the public health centers cannot meet the demands of the community.
5.4 The nature and interest of the medical institutions are such that, the more regular patients there are the better. This is in direct contrast to the ideal and principle of health capacity building for community residents, who are to become the main guardians of their and the communitys health.
5.5 Currently, the operations of community health-building centers are still based on hygiene education and promotion. And there is no apparent improvement in the community residents independent ability to maintain health.
5.6 In recent years, there has been promotion of projects, including exploring models for building healthy communities by oral history, smoke-free schools, healthy cities, health promoting schools and university-community alliance. To effectively integrate these undertakings and create a synergistic effect of healthy life promotion is a direction worth putting efforts into.
II. Plan Objectives
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