ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical development of the health care system in Shanghai and traces the performance of the institutional mechanisms established in the pre-reform era from 1842 to 1976. It also explains the governing institutions, public health and health care systems in Shanghai in early years and political, economic and health care systems in urban Shanghai during Mao's era. The historical review shows that the development of public health and health care systems in Shanghai is a political process involving the complex interaction among institutional, historical and ideological forces. A historical overview of the development of public health and health care systems in Shanghai shows that the establishment and institutionalization of public health and health care systems in Shanghai 'linked inseparably with Western imperialism' in the nineteenth century. The chapter concludes by discussing the development trajectory of health care in Shanghai in the pre-reform era using the lens of historical institutionalism.
