ABSTRACT
Public health trends are never unidimensional. It is entirely possible for health to improve in some respects but deteriorate in others. The overall health of the Chinese population was typical of many less-developed nations. The leading causes of disease and death were acute infectious conditions, and those at greatest risk were young children and women of child-bearing age. In 1948 the United Nations Relief Organization stated, "China presents perhaps the greatest and most intractable public health problem of any nation in the world." Two decades later the dominant image of Mao Zedong's China was one of healthy, red-cheeked babies, born to a nation that seemingly provided health care for all. According to a World Bank study mission to China in the early 1980s, by the 1970s, except in the very poorest areas, the leading causes of morbidity and mortality had shifted from infectious diseases to chronic conditions, the so-called epidemiologic transition.
