From Barefoot Doctors to Village Doctors—Rural Healthcare System in China

Jun Fu ()
Additional contact information
Jun Fu: Peking University

Chapter Chapter 1 in China's Pathways to Prosperity, 2025, pp 1-31 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In the equation of economic growth—land, labor, capital—a healthy population is very crucial. China had achieved a high life expectancy even before the era of reforms. Why? This story provides rare insights into the vast healthcare system in rural China, that is, at and below the county level where over 80% of Chinese had lived. Through the eyes of its key protagonists—from “barefoot doctors” to “village doctors”— we get to see how the Chinese rural healthcare system evolved prior to and during the era of reforms, all within the so-called Health Trilemma (quality, access, and cost) that all countries have to face. Did leadership, public policy, or human intentionality make a difference? How did changing institutions impact on performance?

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-96-2196-5_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789819621965

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-96-2196-5_1

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().