Talk:Health in China/Archive 1

Editing
This page could use massive editing. It appears to replicate old Communist propaganda about the great economic improvements of the Mao era. Statistics generated by the PRC are not to be taken seriously in any era. The increases in numbers of doctors and nurses in China after 1949 recited here do not reflect reality. The "barefoot physicians" of the Communist period, whatever their numbers, were little more than untrained workers with little to no medical training. Many American sources about China, particularly from the 1970s, are tendentiously pro-Maoist and should be rigorously screened for politicization.
 * It is also outdated, as the last year mentioned there is 1987. If you know what the real situation is, feel free to change the page. You can edit a page by pressing "edit". Andris 15:49, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Public health in the People's Republic of China &rarr; Public health in mainland China
This article is about public health of the PRC since its establishment in 1949, with no coverage (except SARS, which covers Vietnam and Toronto) on Hong Kong and Macao. Hong Kong and Macao are outside PRC's health authorities jurisdiction, both before and after the transfer of sovereignty.
 * This should be just performed (all registered users can do it) or discussed at talk:Public health in the People's Republic of China. violet/riga (t) 21:40, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * It should be discussed on the relevant talk page, and moved if there's a majority. "People's Republic of China" is more accurate, after all - or are we having a separate article on Public health on Hainan Island? jguk 21:53, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Hainan is part of mainland China, while Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao are not. - 09:43, January 27, 2005, UTC

Peculiar medical system
I heard somewhere that the chinese medical system was peculiar in the way that you pay the doctor when you're healthy and stop paying him when you're ill, which seemed quite consistent to me since it rewards keeping the patient alive and sound instead of promoting long term treatments that only cure the symptoms and not the ilness.

Do you know if that's a myth or maybe something that used to exist but doesn't anymore? (that would be consistent with China concentrating on prevention nowadays). I think that either way, if it's wrong, the rumor should be mentionned and dispelled. If it's true, it shouldn't be forgotten since it's a major peculiarity.Jules LT 20:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I've heard this stated before, I seem to remember it being related to traditional practitioners, rather than more westernized ones. But i really don't know the actuality of it.? It does sound pretty good to me ;) sunja

Water
Should we talk about the water system? I recently went to China (2004) and in someplaces I was told not to drink the water, eat fruit, or even brush my teath useing the water! Banana04131 03:19, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Corruption
Iunno, but it seems to me the entire Chinese medical system is tainted with Corruption. Maybe put it in the article? Colipon+(T) 22:32, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The chinese medical system is indeed EXCEEDINGLY corrupt, as one of my friends put it here in Beijing, many chinese people now look at doctors the same way they look at government officials and the police. The problem is a basic lack of funding and low wages, driving hospitals and doctors to supplement income with corrupt practices. Doctors basically add-on many "consultation" fees and brazenly ask for bribes, as well as add as much as 25% to the price of medicine to skim off for their own, a practice which the hospitals condone, and which has become known as "Using drugs to support hospitals/doctors" (以药养医). The entire article that describes the current period is entire clap-trap. summarising theory but not painting an accurate picture of practise. Perhaps only 300 million people have any real insurance, rural citizens - as in any other situation in China - are summarily screwed, and corruption extends to every hospital, and every province. Basic insurance, bought from the government, has a premium equivalent to 1/6 of the average urban yearly income - the equivalent of making the average american pay 4-5 thousand dollars on their own before obtaining any sort of reimbursement. This does not include the money spent on said bribes and kick-backs. After 2000 yuan the insurance splits the cost with the consumer. 《财经》has had several very good articles on the phenomena of corrupt doctors and hospitals relying on income from selling phamaceuticals.

Added materials, connecting health care system to contemporary political and economic changes
Still needs lots of work. Reorganized the headings too.DavidCowhig 20:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Point of View
This is the current introduction. Doesn't it seem a little non-neutral?

"Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the goal of healthcare programmes has been to provide care to every member of the population and to make maximum use of limited health-care personnel, equipment, and financial resources."

Ordinary Person 09:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

General tidying-up
I have done some "surgery" on the section from the 1990s onwards, to try to put the material into a more logical order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Professorial (talk • contribs) 11:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Pay until you're sick true?
I've heard many times that in medieval times, the Chinese paid their doctors for being healthy and stopped the payments while being sick, giving a nice incentive to the doctors to keep you well (implying the weird incentive for modern doctors to keep the patient coming by keeping them sick). Is that just a made-up story using the Chinese as an example nobody could check or is it true? And if it's just invented as an example of how things should work, is it known in for example the US? Joepnl (talk) 02:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:05, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Public health-care in China → Health in China – This article is about public health, health care, traditional medicine, modern medicine, health statistics, disease outbreaks, and health services and health reform. The best title that captures all of this is 'Health in China', which also matches the format of the categories, and of the bulk of other articles in this space (e.g. Health in Thailand, Health in Syria, etc).

Note to admin: page names are currently messed up as I tried to make the move but made a few errors:
 * I moved the talk page by accident
 * then I tried to move the real page, but there was an existing redirect
 * I then tried to move the redirect, but learned that doesn't work either - so there are now two redirects Health in China and Health in China temp. Any help in cleaning this up appreciated... KarlB (talk) 17:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Housekeeping note: I have deleted Health in China temp and moved Talk:Health in China temp to Talk:Public health-care in China. The current proposal is to move Public health-care in China to Health in China.--Jiang (talk) 22:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * thanks! --KarlB (talk) 23:17, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Move instead to Health in mainland China. 116.48.85.251 (talk) 20:01, 22 April 2012 (UTC) — 116.48.85.251 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Support 'Health in China', consistent with other article titles in the series. Health in non-mainland areas of China can be summarised and referenced with 'main article' tags in this parent article. – NULL  ‹talk› ‹edits›  23:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Consistency in titling is good for users who want to navigate. No reason not to move. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Traditional medicine"
Traditional Chinese medicine is quackery not medicine. Why is it even mentioned in this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.97.159.72 (talk) 10:41, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Article evaluation
Hello, I am an undergraduate at Rice University. I came across this article while looking at interesting healthcare systems in different countries as it relates to Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. Health disparities and unequal access to reliable healthcare seem very apparent in countries like China that have a very large rural population.

After reading the article, I have a few general comments that I believe may help improve the article's content. One thing I noticed was a lack of citations in many places where citations should have been absolutely necessary. For example, in the subsections 'Health indicators,' 'Traditional and modern Chinese medicine,' and 'Primary care,' many of the dates, statistics, and factual information did not have citations to a legitimate source. Without citations, the facts do not appear to be based on reliable information. Furthermore, after clicking on many of the citations, I found that the references found on webpage links no longer exist, so citation update should also be completed.

Everything in the article was relevant to the general topic of Health in China, but the subsections, in my opinion, did not necessarily follow a logical order. For example, the two sections 'Health indicators' and 'Major indicators of health' should either follow each other or be combined into one subsection. In addition, the subsections 'Healthcare workforce,' 'Hygiene and Sanitation,' and 'WHO in China' should follow the content on the history of healthcare in China, rather than be behind 'Medical issues in China.' That way, readers get a full view of the overall healthcare system in China before going into all of the pressing medical issues present in China.

Overall, the article was generally well-balanced, with the exception of just a few underrepresented subsections. It would be great to see more content in 'Health indicators,' 'Healthcare workforce,' and 'Hygiene and sanitation', and less information in 'Traditional and modern Chinese medicine' unless this subsection were to add more information as to the relationship between types of Chinese medicine and its effect on the health of the Chinese population.

MYao (talk) 22:30, 3 September 2015 (UTC)MYao

Healthcare
Would it help to separate out the material about the healthcare system into a separate article? Rathfelder (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/hivartic.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081012044311/http://www.brookings.edu/events/2007/0806_china.aspx to http://www.brookings.edu/events/2007/0806_china.aspx

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Proposed Article Improvements
I know it has been brought up that this article needs some editing. I think it would be helpful to add to the "Health Indicators" section and to describe more measurements and also update them because I believe the ones posted are from 2005. I think there should be a section on the history of health in China and address the challenges this population faces and how it has progressed. I think this article should maybe mention how childbearing/ family planning policies have affected health. Lastly, updating old information into the most recent given information would be beneficial. I'm going to include some sources for reference:
 * “Global Reference List of 100 Core Health Indicators, 2015: Metadata.” WHO, World Health Organization, 2015, www.who.int/healthinfo/indicators/2015/metadata/en/.
 * Brink, Susan. “What China Can Teach The World About Successful Health Care.” NPR, NPR, 3 Apr. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/04/03/397158218/what-china-can-teach-the-world-about-successful-health-care.
 * Kan, Haidong. “Environment and Health in China: Challenges and Opportunities.” Environmental Health Perspectives 117.12 (2009): A530–A531. PMC. Web. 15 Mar. 2018.
 * “Healthy China: Deepening Health Reform in China.” World Bank, 2016, www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/publication/healthy-china-deepening-health-reform-in-china

Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks! Sigarg (talk) 23:36, 28 March 2018 (UTC)Sigarg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sigarg (talk • contribs) 04:21, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Revision Proposal
I'm a student at Rice University and am considering revising this article for a course. The article contains good information, sections, and a fair number of sources. However, it could be expanded. Specifically, citations seem to be missing for much of the information presented. Additionally, Some sections, such as “Dependency Ratio”, “smoking”, and “Hepatitis B” need to be expanded. I think a section on health prior to 1949 would also be interesting, as well as a section on environmental effects on health. Other sections like “One Child Policy” need to be updated. Sections like “epidemiological studies” may need to be removed. Overall, I think revision of this article would mainly involve polishing, expanding, and trimming rather than a huge overhaul. I think doing so could help move it to a more easily digestible piece, with more academically-sourced information. Please see my user page for my topic proposal!. SSchlhmr (talk) 05:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Upcoming revisions
Hello, this is the article I will now be working on for my semester-long project. I've outlined my proposal in my sandbox, which you can find here: User:SSchlhmr/sandbox. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions on what I could revise! SSchlhmr (talk) 02:51, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Peer Review
I think that the changes to this article are great and improved the readability of this page. I specifically liked how you reorganized the “Post 1949 History” section into subsections based on chronological order. I also thought that you brought up many interesting points when you tied in the environmental condition of China to Chinese health problems. Additionally, I liked how you brought a lot of attention to current health issues. However, to improve this page, I would recommend adding a lead to summarize all of the sections. Additionally, I would add more illustrations to supplement the information presented in the article. Keep up the great work! Prashanth314 (talk) 17:22, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Pubmed sources
The Lancet (which is already used in this entry) is a good source.

For a Pubmed search https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed of The Lancet, try

("Lancet (London, England)"[Journal]) AND (((health care)[Title] OR healthcare )[Title] AND china[Title])

and for a Pubmed search of other core medical journals, try

((((health care)[Title] OR healthcare )[Title] AND china[Title]) AND ("The New England journal of medicine"[Journal] OR "JAMA"[Journal] OR "JAMA internal medicine"[Journal] OR "Lancet"[Journal] OR "bmj clinical research ed"[Journal])) NOT (covid-19)

--Nbauman (talk) 19:16, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 24 April 2020.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:12, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 24 April 2020.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:12, 16 January 2022 (UTC)