Lecture Information:

Time: May 15, 2023 (Monday) 9:00-10:00

Offline: Room 620,Yifu Teaching Building, Peking University Health Science Center

Online: VooV Meeting Number：395-053-835

Speaker: Associate Prof. Rachel Core (Stetson University)

Moderator: Associate Prof. Su Jingjing (School of Health Humanities, Peking University)

Commentator: Prof. Zhang Daqing (School of Health Humanities, Peking University)

Lecture Title: Making Medical Advances Available: Institutional Change and Tuberculosis Control in Mao-Era Shanghai 

Abstract:

Tuberculosis was the world’s most widespread and deadly infectious disease throughout the twentieth century, including in Mainland China. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was great optimism that the disease would be fully eradicated due to the discovery of effective antibiotics, yet TB remains with us and drug-resistant strains have become more prevalent. This talk will illustrate how the urban work-unit system became an effective distribution point for medical and public health interventions, including widespread case identification and isolation of sufferers, starting in the 1950s. Since the dismantling of the work-unit system in the 1990s, China faced increasing TB control challenges at the same time as the nation became an economic superpower. The talk will conclude that the need for an effective implementation point for public health interventions remains relevant in today’s era of newly emerging diseases.