Chinese, U.S. Delegates Work to Join Medicine, Public Health
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A U.S. initiative that works to bridge the gap between medicine and public health has gone international.
In September, health leaders from the United States and China came together for the first-ever USA/China Medicine and Public Health Initiative Conference. Held for two days in Beijing, the conference focused on the ways Chinese officials can unite the medicine and public health fields in their country as well as ways that U.S. and Chinese officials can more closely work together on the issue.
Conference participants adopted a call to action during the successful meeting, agreeing to work toward establishing a joint China/U.S. medicine and public health organization, developing a Web site, organizing community demonstration projects and disseminating strategic documents on the issue.
Started in ’1993, the U.S. Medicine and Public Health Initiative works to end the disconnect between medicine and public health by building awareness between the two groups. Because medical and public health workers in the United States advance through separate educational systems and often work in different health settings, the two branches of the health work force can lack full knowledge of what the other does. As a result, the two groups may miss out on opportunities to work together.
Thanks to the Medicine and Public Health Initiative, however, efforts to address that disconnect are under way at the national level and in Florida, Texas, Arizona and Alaska.
The disconnect between medicine and public health is not limited to the United States, however. While the United States and China have distinctly different health care systems, conference attendees found they had much in common when it came to a lack of shared knowledge between medicine and public health, according to APHA member Jay Classer, MS, PhD, who is coordinating the Medicine and Public Health Initiative in the United States.
“There was a total consensus for all that medicine and public health had to work together,” said Classer, who is also a professor at the University of Texas at Houston. “This is not a choice.”
The historic conference, sponsored by the China Medical Board, included discussions and . presentations that focused on issues such as medical education, disease investigation and student participation. Speakers also addressed the ways medicine and public health officials in China are cooperating to address severe acute respiratory syndrome, mental health programs and HIV/AIDS.
“This truly was a groundbreaking conference,” Classer said. “There has never been one like it before. Best of all, we do have a call to action and a follow-up set of steps.”
More than 150 people attended the conference, including U.S. representatives from APHA, the Association of Schools of Public Health and Association of Academic Health Centers. In addition to the U.S. delegation, participants also included a representative from the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Physicians and a cross- section of workers and officials from the Chinese health system. Han Qide, vice chair of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, was the event’s keynote speaker.
U.S. and Chinese health advocates came together in Beijing for a historic conference on medicine and public health issues.
Conference attendees from both sides of the globe are eager to continue the work that began in September, according to conference attendee Alien Jones, PhD, secretary-general of the World Federation of Public Health Associations.
“In public health, partnerships have always been important, but because of the times we live in, they are especially important today,” said Jones, who is also APHA’s director of education and global health resources.
The Medicine and Public Health Initiative will be the subject of a session during APHA’s 132nd Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., this month. The session, number 3096.2, will be held Monday, Nov. 8, at 10:30 a.m. Check the Annual Meeting final program for session location.
The call to action and other material from the conference will be available online at
– Michele Late
Copyright American Public Health Association Nov 2004