During the 1970s, a wave of publications emerged in "the West" on the dramatic Cultural Revolution developments which were taking place in rural health care in the People's Republic of China. The PRC's model became internationally renowned in public health and health development circles, and served as the inspiration for the World Health Organization's Primary Health Care initiative. In the early to mid-1980's, however, with the advent of post-Mao political and economic changes in the PRC, specifically rural decollectivization, it was feared that the fate of rural health care in China was seriously threatened. Since the early 1980s, a number of additional scholarly publications have addressed the changes in rural health care in the post-Mao PRC. This article contributes to the ongoing discussion about rural PRC health care by illuminating some of the discrepancies between the policies upon which much of the debate has been based and the actual ways in which the policies were played out "on the ground" as reflected in a case study of one rural area of the PRC. Several key points about the practice of rural health care both during and after collectivization are addressed, as are a number of other concerns, including the financing of rural health care, its relative emphasis on prevention and primary care versus curing and secondary and tertiary care, issues of villagers' access to health services, issues of training and/or professionalization of village health practitioners, and issues of relative emphasis on Chinese versus Western medicine.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Winter 1998
Health|
November 28 2007
From "Barefoot Doctor" to "Village Doctor" in Tiger Springs Village: A Case Study of Rural Health Care Transformations in Socialist China
Sydney White
Sydney White
1
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Temple University
Search for other works by this author on:
Human Organization (1998) 57 (4): 480–490.
Citation
Sydney White; From "Barefoot Doctor" to "Village Doctor" in Tiger Springs Village: A Case Study of Rural Health Care Transformations in Socialist China. Human Organization 1 December 1998; 57 (4): 480–490. doi: https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.57.4.hp3311372h0xx2u7
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Client Account
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.
Could not validate captcha. Please try again.
Sign in via your Institution
Sign in via your InstitutionCiting articles via
MPAs AS PROTECTED DESTINATIONS: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING FISHING, AND PERCEPTIONS OF MARINE RESERVES IN PUGET SOUND, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
Marc L. Miller, Richard B. Pollnac, Patrick J. Christie
RESPONSIBLE DRIVING IN THE AGE OF SMARTPHONES: APPLIED RESEARCH FOR IMPROVING ROAD SAFETY IN THE MOTOR CITY
Yuson Jung, Andrea Sankar, Kaitlin Carter, Yen-Ting Chang, Bianca Dean, Travis Kruso, Colleen Linn, Emily Lock, Craig Meiners, Molly Sanford, Haley Scott, Jasmine Walker
EDITORIAL: KEEPING PACE
Lenore Manderson