Conference on advances in health policy and healthcare in China and the US are held at Yale

Conference on advances in health policy and healthcare in China and the United States are held at Yale University, May 11-13, 2018

A conference Advances in Health Policy and Healthcare: The Road Ahead is taking place at the Yale School of Public Health on May 11-13, 2018. Yale School of Public Health, Yale Macmillan Center, Yale Institute for Global Health, Yale-China Association, among others, are co-hosts of the event.

This is the 2nd Biennial Conference of the China Health Policy and Management Society (CHPAMS). This year also marks the 10-year of founding of the China Health Policy and Management Society.

The conference brings together 240 prominent public health, economics and data science researchers, healthcare professionals, entrepreneurs, NGOs, government officials from the U.S., China, and other regions in the world for organized sessions, roundtables and workshops, information sessions centered around scholarly exchange and professional development.

“We spent tremendous efforts to put together most important public health issues in both countries into 35 cohesive discussion sessions. Each session includes closely related studies in the U.S. and China’s healthcare systems to facilitate us to solve these critical issues in comparative perspectives. In many cases we already have good answers to some public health issues, our goal is to make it happen and to improve people’s well-being. ” said Xi Chen, assistant professor of health policy and economics at YSPH and president-elect (2016-2018) and president (2018-2020) of CHPAMS.

This year’s CHPAMS biennial conference will have a special focus on Healthy China 2030 national blueprint. Since October 2016, Healthy China 2030 (HC 2030), a national program of action to promote the health of 1.4 billion Chinese population, has been central to the Chinese Government’s agenda for health and development, and has the potential to benefit the rest of the world.

The first day discussions include three major transitions in the health sector. First, health service provision should target patients as well as healthy citizens; second, we should shift our focus from disease episode to the life cycle. Population health is better managed from “cradle to grave”; third, health should be relevant not only to China’s National Health Commission but to all related sectors. For example, industries such as food, environment, sport, and public transit also play important roles.

The opening speech made by Dean of Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Sten H. Vermund illustrates potential public health crisis in China and the solutions from the U.S. and EU policy making perspectives. Lincoln Chen, President of China Medical Board, discusses China’s role in the transformation of global health, especially through the Belt and Road Initiative and direct health aid. He also offered his vision for China’s role in global health in the 21st Century. Paul D. Cleary, former Dean of Public Health at Yale University talks about using information from patients to guide and assess healthcare transformation. Michael Grossman, Director of Health Economics Program at the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) summarizes health economics research at NBER and its implication for health economics research in China. Harlan M Krumholz, Director of Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Yale-New Haven Hospital present the way China could lead the world to the next generation of health care through designing a smart, digital, and learning health care system. T. Paul Schultz, former directior of Yale’s Economic Growth Center, argues that national health insurance can promote more equitable access to health care, but more has to be done in many countries to enhance enrollment. Jody L. Sindelar, founding President of American Health Economics Association, offers her insights on the new approaches to smoking cessation through behavioral economics, financial incentives, windows of opportunities and wearables. Dr. Sindelar also discusses her ongoing work in China to reduce secondhand smoke for many women. Dr. Gonghuan Yang, Former Vice Director of China National Center for Disease Control, reports important findings on surges in burden of diseases, especially chronic diseases, in China. Dr. Yang also spend time discuss the current water pollution situation in China.

A special lunch is held to celebrate a century of modern western medical education in China pioneered by China Medical Board (founder of Peking Union Medical College) and Yale-China Association (founder of Xiangya Medical School). Lincoln Chen, President of China Medical Board, and David Youtz, President of Yale-China Association, both join and address the audiences on what we could learn from the history and how not to forget about that history when China is moving forward on health care quality and innovations.

In a roundtable “Mining Gold” from Big Data in Healthcare, Shuangge Steven Ma, Professor of Biostatistics, and Hongyu Zhao, Department Chair and Ira V. Hiscock Professor of Biostatistics, Professor of Genetics, Statistics and Data Science at Yale University are joined by Gongwei Zhou, Vice Director of National Center for Statistics and Information at China National Health Commission and Dr. Guangjun Yu, Director of Shanghai Renmin Hospital, to discuss the many opportunities and challenges presented by the big data collected by hospitals, pharmaceutical and insurance companies, universities, and government agencies.

Yawei Zhang, Section Chief Surgical Outcomes and Epidemiology, Yale Department of Surgery and Associate Professor at Yale School of Public Health, is joined by Michelle L. Bell, Mary E. Pinchot Professor of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Professor of Environmental Health at Yale University, to lead a roundtable discussion on Environment, Climate Change and Health, an event co-organized by Yale Climate Change and Health Initiative. Both Zhang and Bell have been working intensively on climate change and environmental health in China.

140 talks in 35 organized sessions, such as some co-organized with Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Global Labor Organization (GLO), are held on May 11-12. In the meantime, delegations of major Chinese hospitals, most prestigious public health schools, a number healthcare enterprises, and health media worldwide are joining the three-day conference.