ABSTRACT
From the early 1950s, the thrust of the public health strategy of China was to redress the rural-urban imbalance in health care. From the mid-1930s, there was evidence of experiments in China which made maximum use of available human and materiel resources, taking advantage of local initiative and involving the community. The primary focus of the national health program in China has been on serving the people. Communes were organised in China for the sake of the peasant who cultivated land collectively with his neighbors. One field in which China has made a major effort in prevention is environmental health. Health education and community organisation and participation have been identified by WHO Missions to China as the key factors responsible for the improvement of health and living standards. A corps of medical workers has been created, a referral chain exists, and China's peasants have had their demands for medical care legitimated.
