This book, based on extensive original research, considers the transformation of public health systems in major East, South and Southeast Asian countries in the period following the Second World War. It examines how public health concepts, policies, institutions and practices were improved, shows how international health standards were implemented, sometimes through the direct intervention of transnational organisations, and explores how indigenous traditions and local social and cultural concerns affected developments, with, in some cases, the construction of public health systems forming an important part of nation-building in post-war and post-independence countries. Throughout, the book relates developments in public health systems to people’s health, demographic changes, and economic and social reconstruction projects.

Bu and her contributors illustrate the complexity of tensions and negotiations in the development of different types of public health systems in Asia during the early Cold War. Competing models of development with different political ideologies and economic enterprises increasingly influenced Asian countries in their efforts to build modern nations after World War II. Looking at examples from China, Japan, South and North Korea, India, and Indonesia, the contributors to this volume look at how a range of Asian countries handled this postcolonial challenge. Health became a pivotal area that sustained the political discourse of differentiating one type of society from the other and promoting each system’s advantages over the other’s during the Cold War. Central to the discourse of a just society and the well-being of citizens was the promotion of public health and welfare for the people. The right to health was considered a fundamental human right as well as an essential social justice. A healthy population was also a prerequisite for national economic prosperity. Public health in postwar Asia was, therefore, a sociopolitical matter as well as a concern for the well-being of individuals. The health of the people demonstrated the advancement of a nation and provided the insurance for economic productivity and national prosperity. An essential read for historians and policymakers of public health and historians of Asia during the Cold War.

The Asia-Pacific region has not only the greatest concentration of population but is, arguably, the future economic centre of the world. Epidemiological transition in the region is occurring much faster than it did in the West and many countries face the emerging problem of chronic diseases at the same time as they continue to grapple with communicable diseases. This book explores how disease patterns and health problems in Asia and the Pacific, and collective responses to them, have been shaped over time by cultural, economic, social, demographic, environmental and political factors. With fourteen chapters, each devoted to a country in the region, the authors take a comparative and historical approach to the evolution of public health and preventive medicine, and offer a broader understanding of the links in a globalizing world between health on the one hand and culture, economy, polity and society on the other. Public Health in Asia and the Pacific presents the importance of the non-medical context in the history of human disease, as well as the significance of disease in the larger histories of the region. It will appeal to scholars and policy makers in the fields of public health, the history of medicine, and those with a wider interest in the Asia-Pacific region.

This book examines the encounter between western and Asian models of public health and medicine in a range of East and Southeast Asian countries over the course of the twentieth century until now. It discusses the transfer of scientific knowledge of medicine and public health approaches from Europe and the United States to several Asian countries — Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Taiwan, and China — and local interactions with, and transformations of, these public health models and approaches from the nineteenth century to the 1950s. Taking a critical look at assumptions about the objectiveness of science, the book highlights the use of scientific knowledge for political control, cultural manipulation, social transformation and economic needs. It rigorously and systematically investigates the historical developments of public health concepts, policies, institutions, and how these practices changed from colonial, to post-colonial and into the present day.

This book analyses the complexity of South and Southeast Asia in international health, taking into account the impact of the geopolitics of the Cold War on the development of public health and development in the regions. In light of the recent health pandemic, which has mobilized experts and governments and led to a securitized approach to global health, this book offers a regional approach to global health histories. The chapters provide case studies ranging from the Cold War to the present time and covering countries from across South and Southeast Asia. Contributors analyse issues related to disease control, an adjunct to wider Cold War geopolitics. They also examine the responses of regional organizations, particularly the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), towards COVID-19. Collectively, the book illustrates how narrowly-conceived global health programs implemented by aid agencies failed to account for the local, national or regional contexts. Situating health in South and Southeast Asia in broader global contexts, the book will be a valuable contribution to the History of Medicine and Health and Political Economy of South and Southeast Asia.

In 1949, the newly-independent Indonesia inherited a health system that was devastated by three-and-a-half years of Japanese occupation and four years of revolutionary struggle against the Dutch. Additionally, the country had to cope with the resurgence of epidemic and endemic diseases. The Ministry of Health had initiated a number of symbolic public health initiatives – both during the Indonesian Revolution (1945 to 1949) and the early 1950s – resulting in a noticeable decline of mortality. These initiatives fuelled the newly-independent nation’s confidence because they demonstrated to the international community that Indonesia was capable of standing on its own feet. Unfortunately, by the mid-1950s, Indonesia’s public health program faltered due to a constellation of factors attributed to the political tensions between Java and the Outer Islands, administrative problems, corruption, and rampant inflation. The optimism that characterised the early years of independence gave way to despair. The Soekarno era could, therefore, be interpreted as the era of bold plans but unfulfilled aspirations in Indonesian public health. Based on extensive archival research and a close reading of Indonesian primary sources, this book provides a nuanced account of the inner tensions in Indonesian public health during the twentieth century – between a narrow biomedical approach that emphasised disease eradication, and a holistic approach that linked public health to practical concerns of nation-building.