The Health Station of the First Inner Ward, Peiping: Its history and legacy

Abstract

The Health Station of the First Inner Ward, Peiping, was open in 1925 as a community health care institution of Peiping Health Bureau, sponsored and operated by Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) established in 1921. It was a unique demonstration project to provide the community with medical and prevention service, to implement an extraordinary educational internship of preventive medicine for PUMC students and other doctors and nurses all over the country; and to conduct applied research on the community residents'disease prevention and health promotion. Guided by the prevention thought advocated by John B. Grant, the first Chairperson of the Department of Public Health, PUMC, the station created a variety of innovative programs such as prevention-oriented public health nursing for the residents and school students, maternal and child health programs, and family health records and residents' vital surveillance statistics. The station operated for 26 years and made a significant influence on the contemporary public health in China through its unparalleled prevention education and training program and its innovative community health care demonstration. As one of the examples, it inspired the thought of primary health care raised by WHO several decades later. It provides us definitely beneficial learning as nowadays we reform health system in China.