[The community health team: roles and responsibilities in infection control]

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.