Medical System and Health Space in Modern Beijing City：A Geospatial Analysis

Abstract: With the introduction of Western medical knowledge into China since Late Qing Dynasty, medical systems and public health management have become major criteria for assessing the nation's modernized governance. The health condition of Beijing City was under constant scrutiny and in dire need of transformation during the Republican period, further refined thanks to the establishment of management institutions (e.g., health demonstration zones and health affairs offices) and related policies.

Utilising the Beijing Municipal Archives, the Republic of China Electronic Information Database, and the published historical series as data bases, this study will attempt to examine the spatial situation of healthcare in Beijing in the 1930s. Structured by OCR technology and spreadsheet software, together with manual correction, this study comprehensively collects raw materials such as the Beijing City Hospital Directory, the annual statistical report of the Department of Health, and the registration form of the Pharmaceutical Trade Association, and further constructs the corresponding spatially distributed geographic information dataset. Using geographic information system (GIS) technology and statistical methods, this study innovatively demonstrates and analyses the distribution of public health and medical resources in the city of Beijing before and after the 1930s at the spatial level. Our study further examines the city-wide and the first health district of Beijing, so as to show the spatial landscape of healthcare in Beijing City during the construction of modernity and sanitation.

# Team members

  • Zhang Zhong, History, Peking University
  • Zhong Yuelin, Mathematics Economics and Mathematics Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics
  • Liu Yiran, Social Anthropology, University of Oxford
  • Meng Haoyu, History of Science , Tsinghua University
  • Qi Heyan, Urban Tourism, University of Barcelona
  • Tong Yao, Applied Data Science, University of Michigan
  • Wang Jianhang, historical geography, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
  • Wang Yitong, Economic History，Nankai University
  • Yao Yourong, Sociology, University of Macau

# Supervisors