Get Well and Go Back to Work!

THIS COLORFUL CHINESE public health poster tells patients with tuberculosis (TB) to get treatment to recover their health and their productivity. The writing on the wall says: “Rest Well and Recover so as to Go Back to Work Early.”

During the 1950s, as China embarked on the first Five-Year Plan to build a new socialist economy, health policy emphasized that as industrial production developed, factories would provide labor insurance and labor protection, government employees would have free medical care, and health facilities would be strengthened to protect people's health in the cities and the countryside.¹ Health authorities were very concerned about widespread diseases and the associated loss of economic productivity.

Health posters were an important educational tool in China's public health campaigns from 1950 through 1980. Anti-TB posters encouraged people to have x-rays, take TB vaccines, and not to spit on the ground; the posters also prodded individuals to embrace good nutrition and regular exercise, and to get enough sleep to boost general health and build a strong immune system. TB declined significantly as a result of work units’ active participation in the health campaigns and the availability of universal free health care.

Today, TB has resurfaced as a public health threat. The World Health Organization estimates that, globally, more than 2 billion people (a third of the world's population) are infected with TB bacilli; China alone has 4.5 million known cases, second only to India. About 160 000 Chinese persons lost their lives to TB in 2008.²

This Chinese anti-TB poster from the early 1950s reads, “The purpose of treating tuberculosis is to gain recovery and also productivity; strive to make the patient become a physically and mentally healthy productive person.”

Source. Prints and Photographs Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.

TB–and alarmingly, the prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB–is spreading across urban and rural regions in China. This drains China's health budget and reduces overall economic productivity, as China's rapid economic growth depends on the manpower of migrant laborers-workers who are highly vulnerable because they are usually poor and do not have access to subsidized medical service while away from home.

Today in China, more emphasis is given to curative methods and less to the active involvement of workers to improve their own health. Perhaps, to more effectively combat TB, workers' active participation in health promotion and protection again should be emphasized as much as treatment.