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Taiwan's multicultural population requires that nursing educators address and effectively manage trans-cultural healthcare issues. A longstanding lack of self-reflection on cultural issues has caused a gap between community nursing and the health needs of Taiwan's indigenous people. Taiwan's newer immigrant populations from Southeast Asia, Mainland China and elsewhere have added further cultural complexity to Taiwan's community healthcare landscape. In this paper, the authors apply their practical experience in community nursing to derive the special healthcare needs of indigenous and new immigrant populations based on the unique cultural attributes and health concepts of these populations. We hope to help nursing staff develop cultural self-awareness and sensitivity by admiring, respecting, and learning from their own culture while empathizing with and appreciating the cultures of their healthcare clients. By doing so, healthcare providers can further examine the cultural characteristics of the professional nursing system and conduct trans-cultural evaluations.

Over the past three decades, chronic disease has replaced communicable disease as the leading collective cause of death in Taiwan. As a result, medical and public healthcare manpower and budgets dedicated to communicable diseases have been reduced. The 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) changed government epidemic prevention policies and marked a renewed focus on preventing and controlling communicable diseases. This study introduces Taiwan's communicable disease control system and reforms, the domestic status of communicable diseases, the infection control policies of Japanese colonial authorities in the early 20th century, and national / community-level communicable disease control mechanisms in place before and after 2003. This paper further examines the actual health management conditions in a county in southern Taiwan to show how the public health system is rooted in communities, how infection control strategies are promoted, and how social organizations influence community life and mores.

This review considers health professionalism in community practices within a Taiwan social-historical context. The author adopted a contrast-of-context approach to examine the community practices of Taiwan health professionals and intellectual transformation of Professor Byron Good. Focusing on the formation of an international collaborative platform for community mental health, this paper articulates the historical and social values of community health practices, identifies the essence of health practices, and highlights the significance of the Taiwan experience to advancing community mental practice worldwide. It furthermore underscores the strategic role of Taiwan in efforts to bridge Asian community health knowledge with that of the world. This essay first introduces the recent establishment of the international collaborative platform. Community psychiatric rehabilitation practices in Taiwan are then contrasted with the worldwide de-institutionalization intellectual movement. Paradigm shifts in the academic pursuits and intellectual journey of Professor Byron Good are then delineated, then community practices and social missions of Taiwan health professionals are contrasted. The implied connotations of health professionalism and bioethics in large-scale social change are explored next. This paper integrates relationships amongst community practice, health professionalism and civil society. Professor Byron Good and other friends, either domestic or international, will work together to highlight the new values embedded in recent Taiwan experience and the contributions such have made to global knowledge production.

The community-based osteoporosis screening program for menopausal women is an important service provided by community health nurses. This paper discusses how normalization technologies such as bone density screening help to discipline menopausal women conformed to normative behavior as to reduce bone loss risk. An analysis of osteoporosis screening policies found that mass surveillance technology perpetuates the knowledge of diseased menopausal body with osteoporosis. In addition, voluntary practices of self-surveillance represent the governmental strategy of disciplinary power by which menopausal women are monitored in the framework of neoliberalism emphasizing individual choice and freedom. Although unreliable, the Quantitative Ultrasound promoted by pharmaceutical companies has been participated eagerly by women in community osteoporosis screening activities. Self-surveillance measures further involve modifications in lifestyle (e.g., diet, exercise, daily activity, garments) to prevent bone loss and to lessen the risks of facing costly medical care bills. This paper suggests that health care professionals pay greater attention to menopausal women's opinions about their screening experiences and to the results of discussions on screening results. Better assessing screening policies should help facilitate a transformation in policy focus from self regulation to environmental modification.