Seminar on Global Health Discipline Development Held by China CDC and Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine

On 5 September 2025, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine held a seminar on global health discipline development in Beijing. Wang Jianwei, Director of China CDC and President of the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, attended the meeting and delivered remarks. The seminar was chaired by Li Qun, Deputy Director of China CDC and Vice President of the Academy. Experts in global health from a number of universities and research institutes took part.

In his opening speech, Director Wang noted that the global public health governance system is undergoing profound change and that the challenges posed by emerging and sudden infectious disease outbreaks are becoming increasingly serious. Against this backdrop, training high level public health professionals with an international outlook and strong practical skills has become a major national strategic need. He pointed out that since 2024, when the Center and the Academy were approved to implement an innovation program for training high level applied public health professionals, they have been actively advancing the development of a doctoral program in public health with a concentration in global health, in order to strengthen talent reserves and discipline planning in this field.

At the seminar, Qi Xiaopeng, Director of the Global Public Health Center, reported on the progress and results of the Center and the Academy in building global health as an academic discipline. Professor Chen Li from Beijing Normal University gave a special presentation on new philosophical perspectives on discipline building in the digital era. During the discussion session, experts held in depth exchanges on how to develop a global health discipline system with distinctive features of disease control and on possible pathways for its future development.

In his concluding remarks, Deputy Director Li Qun noted that the seminar had brought together many leading experts and their valuable insights. He said it provided important reference and ideas for advancing global health discipline development and talent training at China CDC and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine.