An introduction to the Patriotic Health Work

(en.nhfpc.gov.cn)

Updated: 2014-07-15

• Background of the Patriotic Health Campaign

As an initiative and successful practice in which the Party applies the Mass Line to health and disease prevention work, the Patriotic Health Campaign is an important part of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Soon after the founding of People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong and other older generation revolutionaries advocated the establishment of the Central Patriotic Health Campaign Committee for the purpose of dealing with serious epidemic situations and containing infectious diseases, which launched a vigorous nationwide patriotic public health campaign. On August 11, 1988, the Central Patriotic Health Campaign Committee was renamed the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee (NPHCC) as a consultant and coordinating body under the State Council. After the 2013 organizational restructuring, the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee consisted of 32 departments such as the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Housing and Urban Construction, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, and the PLA General Logistics Department. The office of the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee is based in the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Over the years, with the CPC Central Committee and State Council attaching great importance to it and with national leaders showing concern for the public, the main content of the Patriotic Health Campaign has always been to solve prominent health problems arising from the people's productive activities and everyday life. With different focuses in different periods, a series of effective initiatives has successively been launched, including the "Two Cares and Five Transformations" (caring for water supply, caring for fecal treatment, transforming wells, transforming toilets, transforming kitchen stoves, transforming corral and transforming the environment), the movement of “Five Stresses and Four Points of Beauty,” the Nationwide Health Inspections in Cities, the Building of Clean Cities, the Initiative to Give Health Education to 900 Million Farmers, activities characterized by “Focuses on Civilization, Hygiene, Science, and Fostering New Attitudes,” and the Clean-Up Campaign to Improve Environmental Hygiene in Urban and Rural Areas. Through years of unremitting effort, we have made tangible and remarkable achievements in patriotic health work, winning the support and praise of the general public.