The development and reform of public health in China from 1949 to 2019
subject: Public Health, development, reform, National Basic Public Health Service Program
description: Abstract Background Public health system plays a vital role in the development of health sector in China and protects the health of Chinese people. However, there are few comprehensive reviews and studies focusing on its evolution and reform. It is worthwhile to pay attention to the public health development in China, given that the history and structure of public health system have their own characteristics in China. Methods The study is a retrospective review of the development public health over seven decades in China. It presents the findings from some national or provincial survey data, interviews with key informants, reviews of relevant published papers and policy contents. Results This study identified four key stages that public health experienced in China: the initial stage centering on prevention, the stage of deviation with more attention to treatment but little to prevention, the recovery stage after SARS(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndromes) Crisis, and the new stage to an equitable and people-centered system. In the latest stage, the National Basic Public Health Service Program (NBPHSP) is implemented to respond the threat of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and has achieved some initial results, while there are still many challenges including service quality, poor integration among service items and IT system, lack of quality professionals and insufficient intersectoral endeavor. Discussion There are unique Chinese wisdom and remarkable achievements as well as twists and turns on the development of China’s public health. Prevention-first, flexible structure of the system, multi-agency collaboration and mass mobilization and society participation are the main experience of public health in early stage. Despite twists and turns since 1980s, public health system in China shows substantial resilience which may be from the government’s continuous commitment to social development and people’s livelihoods and its flexible governance. In 2010s, in order to achie…
creator: Li Wang, Zhihao Wang, Qinglian Ma, Guixia Fang, Jinxia YANG
source: Globalization and Health
publisher: BMC
date: 2019
language: EN
identifier: DOI: 10.1186/s12992-019-0486-6
coverage: Public aspects of medicine