Dr. Hervey Gimbel, president of the project, and his wife Ann, are working with the Chinese health authorities to tackle such massive health problems as smoking, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes through direct training programs.
Health educators from the China USA Health Project are working to tackle major health challenges in the world’s most populous nation.
Dr. Hervey Gimbel, president of the project, and his wife Ann, are working with the Chinese health authorities to tackle massive health problems such as smoking, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes through direct training programs.
“Over the past ten years we’ve arranged for 60 health professionals to go to China and teach both high-level health educators and public health physicians to achieve community health behavior change,” says Gimbel. “Invitations came from the Ministry of Health and other government agencies resulting in training at two major heart institutes in Beijing and Guangzhou, the National Health Education Institute, medical schools, schools of public health, teaching hospitals, city health departments, and the Chinese Association on Smoking and Health. This has meant travel to 20 major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Lhasa in Tibet.”
The Gimbels, both members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said in an interview on March 10 that the methods of the project are to “form long-term and bonding friendships; build bridges across barriers of ethnicity, culture, language and religion; and provide state-of-the-art health teaching methodology.”
Smoking is a major concern in China. Sixty-seven percent of males over age 15 are smokers. With a population of 1.25 billion people, this translates into an immense health disaster for both individual smokers and the Chinese health system.
“When you realize that the average male smoker in China spends two-thirds of his share of family income on buying cigarettes, you understand the devastating impact of smoking on health and family finances,” says Ann Gimbel, a qualified nurse and health educator. “Over 50 million Chinese children will die from smoking-related diseases by mid-century. That is why we are committed to bringing health training to the local health educators to support them in this vital work.”
Asked about how they were perceived in China, the Gimbels said that Christians were viewed as “kind and helpful,” and that they were appreciated for bringing “a loving heart to China.”
One of the major impacts has been to reduce smoking rates among medical students in the three leading medical schools in Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan. Over three years the smoking rate among such students was reduced from 30 percent to less than five percent. “This program received a very enthusiastic reception, with a great deal of peer pressure from students on their colleagues to quit smoking,” comments Gimbel.
With some support from the World Bank and UNICEF, the not-for-profit China USA Health Project is seeking participation by dedicated professionals to develop its program to provide a wide range of health education. For more information contact China USA Health Project, P.O. Box 228, Loma Linda, CA 92354, USA.