Public Health in Asia and the Pacific

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 is the first major book on the development of modern public health in Asia and the Pacific. Compared to other studies, this book not only provides discussion of the contemporary sanitary situation in these regions, but also considers the historical background of each location....Given the rising interest in medical history in Asian scholarship, this book is a ‘‘must-read.’’' - SHI-YUNG LIU, China Quarterly, 2008'Its coverage is impressive and illuminates the history of health and medicine in some contexts which have received very little attention to date...the essays collected in this volume provide historians and public health workers with a succinct and up-to-date review of developments in a region which is crucial to the health of the whole world.' - Mark Harrison, University of Oxford'This book is well overdue. Public health history in Asia and the Pacific is critical for any number of reasons—historical and contemporary, biological andsocial, familiar and alien. The editors, then, should be congratulated on bringing together such an important project, and for gathering such a fine troupe of scholars—sociologists, anthropologists, demographers, and historians.' - Alison Bashford, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2009, 83‘This volume offers multiple resources for historians, anthropologists, sociologists, public health experts, and policy analysts. It will be an indispensable handbook for those interested in a rapid, but in-depth, overview of the issues facing each of the countries covered.’ – Bonnie McElhinny, University of Toronto, Bulletin of the Pacific Circle, No.24, April 2010

Milton J. Lewis, an historian of medicine and public health, was a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Public Health, 1989- 2006 and is now at the Australian Health Policy Institute, University of Sydney.Kerrie L. MacPherson is an Associate Professor of History in the Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management, the University of Hong Kong.