BJNews (By Fan Shuo) On April 2, Tsinghua University established Vanke School of Public Health with Margaret Chan,  the former Director-General of the World Health Organization and president of Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia, as the inaugural Dean of the School.

The Vanke School of Public Health at Tsinghua University is aimed at covering four research fields and is oriented towards graduate education in: preventative medicine, comprehensive healthcare, big data in healthcare, and public health policy and management. In the next five to ten years, the School will provide support to China’s epidemic control, vaccine development and decisive think tanks related to major public health policy-making. At the same time, in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other organizations, it plans to move to a world leading position in epidemic transmission mechanisms of infectious diseases, whole-link health surveillance and early warning, and global systemic public health policy and management.

It is understood that Tsinghua University will cooperate with China Vanke Co. Ltd. to build the School of Public Health. Vanke will support the construction of the institute in terms of supporting research innovation, rewarding research achievements and introducing talents.

Zhang Linqi, professor of School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, said that with the global pandemic of the Covid-19 epidemic, the current public health protection system and talent team building are facing major challenges, so there is an urgent need to address the bottlenecks and shortcomings of global public health and health problems, train professional talents, strengthen innovative research, enhance public health scientific governance and scientific and technological capabilities, and provide scientific and effective solutions and methods for prevention and containment of outbreaks.

Since 2010, Tsinghua University has developed the layout of public health-related research and talent training. In 2010, Tsinghua University established the Center for Public Health to carry out research and postgraduate training in the field of public health, and has the foundation of master's degree education in public health. The International Master of Public Health program established by Tsinghua University has trained 112 talents in the field of public health for 32 developing countries since 2014. Since 2015, Institute for Hospital Management of Tsinghua University has cooperated with Bloomberg School of Public Health of Johns Hopkins University and Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health in building the discipline of health care management, training high-level professional public health and health professionals, and teacher exchange and training. In terms of academic research, Tsinghua University has made achievements in epidemiological research on AIDS, Middle East Zika virus and thalassemia, viral toxicology research and immunization, and rapid virus detection technology by promoting cross-disciplinary research.

 Written by Fan Shuo, and Proofread by Wei Zhuo