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Besides looking at major outbreaks of diseases and how they were coped with, diseases such as malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, plague, venereal disease, avian flu and SARS, this book also examines how the successive government regimes in Hong Kong took action to prevent diseases and control potential threats to health. It shows how policies impacted the various Chinese and non-Chinese groups, and how policies were often formulated as a result of negotiations between these different groups. By considering developments over a long historical period, the book contrasts the different approaches in the periods of colonial rule, Japanese occupation, post-war reconstruction, transition to decolonization, and Hong Kong as Special Administrative Region within the People's Republic of China.

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.

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.