Abstract
The purpose of this study is to identify the changing role of public health nurses working for public health centers, and their challenges after implementation of the Community Health Act. A questionnaire was mailed to chief public health nurses at 493 prefectural health centers, and replies were received from 347 centers (response rate of 70.4%). The results of this survey were as follows ;
1) Changes in organization and job descriptions improved the specialization and consistency of their activities. Comprehensive understanding of the community by each public health nurse, on the other hand, has become more difficult to attain.
2) In health-related activities, the challenges are provision of specialty services, investigational research for better understanding of community needs, and improvement of home care services.
3) Support services to cities and towns should be take the form of collection, maintenance analysis, and supply of information and provision of advice for program evaluation, rather than through direct support activities.
The challenges for the future are :
1) comprehensive understanding and support of the cities and towns and
2) reinforcement of program evaluation and investigational researches.
