The Dawn of Rural Public Health in Japan: Support by the Rockefeller Foundation before and during World War II

Abstract

The Rockefeller Foundation was involved in the earliest days of modern preventive healthcare in Japan. Its strategy of promoting primary health care by means of clinics and health centers staffed by public health nurses, trained through fellowship opportunities in the US, expanded to Japan in the late 1920s. The first organized rural public health initiative in Japan was in 1933 in Kanagawa Prefecture, staffed by seven public health nurses from St. Luke's Hospital and afforded valuable training in the context of rural public health. The idea of a rural health center had been discussed for some years and the successes seen in Kanagawa made clear their potential. Nevertheless, the rural health center was not a top priority. Finding the public finances to establish it was a lengthy process which only came after the founding of an urban health center in Tokyo, opened in 1935. The first rural health center was established in 1938 with leadership roles taken by staff who had received Rockefeller Foundation fellowships. Around the same time, the Davison Fund was supporting a rural public health initiative - Miyoshi Aikoen Nursery - led by a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The health program in this center was greatly influenced by St. Luke's leaders and the public health nurse who worked there was a former Rockefeller Foundation fellowship recipient