A documentary history of public health in Hong Kong /edited by Yip Ka-che, Wong Man-kong, and Leung Yuen-sang.
- Hong Kong [China] : The Chinese University Press, (c)2018.
- 1 online resource (xxvii, 433 pages)
Includes bibliographies and index.
Part I. 1841-1941. Settlements, urban development, and health issues -- Government health policies and initiatives before 1941 -- The control of major diseases and epidemics before 1941 -- Local voluntarism, healing spaces, and medical education before 1941 -- part II. 1941-1993. -- The Japanese occupation -- Health issues and initiatives after 1945 -- Public health services and the control of major diseases and epidemics after 1945 -- Local and international philanthropic involvement in public health -- Shifting paradigms in medical education and research : 1947-1993 -- Appendix. Public health in Hong Kong : a chronology (1841-2017).
The publication of this book marks the fifteenth anniversary of the outbreak of the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong in 2003. This documentary study, originating as a research project a year after the epidemic, is a comprehensive attempt to examine the development of public health in Hong Kong from 1841 to the early 1990s. It covers the periods of prewar colonial rule, Japanese occupation, postwar reconstruction and growth, and the beginning of decolonization. It analyzes political, social, economic, and cultural factors, including the intersection of colonial priorities and indigenous agency and practices that affected disease outbreaks and development, government and local responses, advances in technology related to health and medicine, as well as the emergence of health agencies and institutions. The historical documents, selected from government archives, personal papers, and special collections, are invaluable source materials for the critical evaluation of such developments. The book provides a much needed and indispensable historical perspective to understanding Hong Kong's struggle to combat prevalent and emerging diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, avian influenza, and SARS.