| The public health movement,carried out by national or social forces,is a collective activity,which guided by medical science and targeted at the public,and its purpose is to prevent and promote public health.In modern times,with the development of public health movement in the Occident,it gradually expanded through the colonial expansion of Western countries and non-governmental organizations represented by the church.Under this circumstance,China's backward health administration,health conditions,and lack of public health concepts had aroused the attention of the churches in China,which become an important prerequisite for the church to carry out public health campaign.At the same time,public health had also attracted the attention of the Chinese people,and the public opinion on public health was increasing,which created conditions for the development of the public health movement.More importantly,the public health movement had adapted to the needs of church development.On the one hand,under the influence of the social gospel movement,the church paid more attention to the problems of Chinese society and responds to the development requirements of Chinese society.On the other hand,the movement met the needs of preaching of church.It could connect church with the intellectual class and pave the way for doing missionary work to a large and influential class.The development of the church public health movement was a gradual process.According to the different participants,activities and areas,the public health movement could be roughly divided into three stages,namely,the initial development stage,the comprehensive development stage and the transformation stage.During this period,the evolution of the movement reflected three development trends.Firstly,the management mode of the public health movement had developed from the self-management to the cooperation,and the movement received support and recognition from the central and local governments and had gradually been incorporated into the government's public health movement.Secondly,thepublic health campaign had expanded from health education to other fields,such as environmental health,disease prevention,school health,maternal and children health,labor health.Besides,the campaign started to cultivate public health staff and establishes health experimental areas.Finally,the public health movement gradually expanded from port cities to inland and rural area,which to some extent compensated for the lack of government public health campaigns,and greatly expanded the space of public health campaigns.In the process of public health campaigns,the churches had adopted various forms to publicize and practice modern hygiene concepts,such as issuing health prints,conducting health education campaigns,improving urban and rural environmental sanitation,and conducting disease prevention campaigns.Firstly,health prints tended to elaborate the principle of medicine and health and focus on the dissemination of health knowledge.The prints used spoken language and classical Chinese,which adapted to the needs of different people.Secondly,in order to broadcast health knowledge in china,the church held health Parade,health exhibitions and health talks,which had aroused the attention of all sectors of society to health,known as “the health show come to town”.In terms of environmental sanitation,the church constantly improved the sanitation of church hospitals as a demonstration,and promoted it to the society by carrying out activities such as clean-up campaigns,fly-killing campaigns and improved toilets.Finally,in the area of disease prevention and control,the church also carried out activities,including vaccination campaigns,epidemic prevention campaigns,prevention of tuberculosis and venereal diseases,which made the people realized the important public health and preventive medicine.When the church was carrying out health education and improving environmental sanitation,some special groups also attracted the attention of the church.Among them,the health problems of church members had caused discussion in various circles of the church.The church first selected medical missionaries to ensure the health of church members,but with the development of preventive medicine,the church was already dissatisfied with the negative treatment of the missionary'sdisease,but taked active measures,such as regular physical examination,vaccinating,and the vacation system,to protect the health of church members.At the same time,the students of mission school as a reserve force for the development of the church,their health problems also attracted the attention of the church.The church gradually improved the school medical system,and carried out the school health movement.Under the nationalist discourse of strong national power,maternal and children health had also received the attention of the church,and carried out child health campaigns,women's health education and childbirth hygiene to cultivate the foundation of national health and shape new nationals.During this period,the Church also paid attention to labor hygiene and carried out the labor health campaign.The public health campaign carried out by the church had been going on for many years,covering all sectors of society,involving health education,health and epidemic prevention,health care and other fields.It could be said to be an enlightenment movement of modern health knowledge and ideas.It pioneered the Chinese public health movement,whether it was the awakening of the public health awareness and the spread of health knowledge at the time,or the development of local health and the subsequent health movements.At the same time,with the emergence of nationalist nationalism and the consciousness of the construction of modern nation-states,political and social elites had gradually constructed the connection between health and nationality and state.This had caused the movement to attract widespread attention from the Chinese people,and had attracted the attention of successive Chinese governments and cooperated with the government in the field of public health.More importantly,this movement had closely linked the church to the Chinese society and created conditions for the spread of Christianity in China.To this end,the church had carried out a variety of health evangelistic activities,such as health conference,health literature,special medical institution,rural health activities,etc.,which promoted the spread of Christianity in China.In short,under the dual influence of the times of public health appeals and missionary sermons,the public health movement carried outby Christianity had expanded the way of mission and promoted the spread of Christianity in China,which had a strong religious color.At the same time,the movement had been the connection between the health and the country and the health was the root of a strong country,and thus it had a certain nationalism.In the special social environment of modern China,the movement was subject to many restrictions on the internal and external environment,such as funding,personnel,political environment and social development level,which made the church health movement have its inadequacies.Despite all this,it spread health knowledge and arouses people's attention to health,and its content and form had been inherited by future health campaigns,which had promoted the development of modern Chinese public health to a certain extent. |
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