ABSTRACT
The Patriotic Health Movement offers a broad view of China's transformation in the 1950s-1980s when health campaigns were integrated into the socioeconomic reconstruction of the society under the guidance of socialist ideology and patriotic nationalism. It demonstrates how international events, specifically an external threat to national security such as the Korean War, unexpectedly played a formative catalyst in Chinese health policy that effectively made use of people's patriotic sentiment. This chapter discusses the anti-tuberculosis and anti-malaria activities to showcase the Patriotic Health Movement in relation to individual citizens and the nation. China's success in malaria control and TB prevention was attributed to an integrated program that emphasized community participation, multi-tiered primary health care network, the service of rural paramedics called barefoot doctors and the availability of universal free health care. Additionally, the discovery and distribution of effective drugs treated patients in a timely fashion.
