Introduction of Public Health and Preventive Medicine
Established in June 2017, the Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Wuxi Medical School, Jiangnan University, originated from the development of faculty from the School of Food Science, specifically in the fields of Food Quality and Safety, Food Nutrition, and Health, as well as faculty from the Preventive Medicine of the Medical School. Currently, the entire department is comprised of teaching and research offices, including Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Hygienic Toxicology, Environmental Hygiene, Child and Adolescent Health and Maternal and Child Health, Pathogenic Microorganisms and Global Health, and the Preventive Medicine Experimental Teaching Center. It is a vital component of Jiangnan University's discipline of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, actively participating in the establishment of the Public Health Research Center and two key laboratories—the Sino-German International Joint Laboratory for Infection and Immunity and the Key Laboratory for Foodborne Chronic Diseases at Jiangnan University. In 2022, the high-level biosafety laboratory (P3 laboratory) received approval for construction from the National Development and Reform Commission.
Discipline Development
The discipline of Public Health and Preventive Medicine in Jiangnan University originated from the secondary discipline of Nutrition and Food Hygiene developed under the “Double First-Class” Food Science and Technology. Since its establishment, the discipline has always been guided by the university’s “Double First-Class”Food Science and Technology, supported by the ESI top 1% disciplines such as Pharmacology and Toxicology, Environmental and Ecological Science, and takes the Public Health Research Center of Jiangnan University as the carrier. It integrates the high-quality public health resources of six Grade-A tertiary affiliated hospitals in Wuxi, including Affiliated Hospital of Jiangnan University,Jiangnan University Medical Center,Affiliated Wuxi Fifth Hospital of Jiangnan University (Wuxi Base of the National Medical Center for Infectious Diseases), Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, Affiliated Women’s Hospital of Jiangnan University and Affiliated Children’s Hospital of Jiangnan University, as well as multiple district centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public Health and Preventive Medicine has gradually evolved into a system characterized by the strength of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, complemented by the development of Toxicology, Environmental Health, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics.
Faculty and Discipline Characteristics
The Public Health and Preventive Medicine has 87 full-time faculty members, including 35 professors, 40 associate professors, and 12 lecturers. It has 29 doctoral advisors and 34 master’s advisors, with 11 faculty members being recognized as national-level talents.
It has distinct advantages and characteristics. Supported by the State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology (a national key laboratory in Food Science and Resource Exploitation), the International Joint Research Center for Probiotics and Intestinal Health, and the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Food Science and Safety, it focuses on research areas such as the detection and control of biological toxins in food, probiotics and health, population nutritional requirements, metabolic homeostasis regulation, identification, analysis, control, and assessment of new environmental pollutants, and conducts distinctive research in “nutritious food + health” and “environment + health”. It has established the world’s largest resources repository of Lactobacillus plantarum and bifidobacteria and systematically analyzed the health effects of probiotics in the population. It has built the most comprehensive food safety antibody library in China. Research achievements from the discipline have earned recognition, including a Second Prize for National Scientific and Technological Progress and a First Prize from the Jiangsu Science and Technology Award. In the past five years, the discipline has undertaken 96 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and 122 research projects from provincial and municipal levels. It has made significant contributions to promoting healthy living, improving the environment, and developing the health industry in Jiangnan.
Education and Teaching
The discipline has established a second-level Master’s program in Nutrition and Food Hygiene, a first-level Master’s program in Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and a second-level Doctoral program in Foodborne Chronic Diseases. So far, 375 masters have been trained.
The discipline has more than 50 full-time teaching teachers, including one first prize winner of Jiangsu Provincial College Teaching Innovation Competition and two first prize winners of the Medical group of Jiangsu Provincial College Young Teachers Teaching Competition. It is responsible for the teaching of compulsory courses and elective courses for undergraduates majoring in Food Quality and Safety, Clinical Medicine and Nursing, postgraduates majoring in Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and doctoral students majoring in Foodborne Chronic Diseases. The current courses mainly include: Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology, Medical Statistics, Multivariate Statistics, Social Medicine, Molecular Toxicology, Modern Toxicology, Environment and Health, Macro Health Policy and Management, Nutritional Food Hygiene and Foodborne Chronic Diseases, Nutrition and Health Research Progress, etc. It actively promotes bilingual teaching and teaching in English, and undertakes the teaching tasks of Preventive Medicine and Social Medicine for international students. It also has “Preventive Medicine” and “Medical Microbiology” school-level excellent courses.
Academic exchange
It has established extensive academic contacts with domestic and foreign research institutions such as University of Florida, University of California in San Francisco, University of Duisburg-Essen, National Institutes of Health, and National Kangwon University of Korea
Since 2017, it has actively carried out health exchanges with countries along the “Belt and Road”, and enrolled public health postgraduates from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sudan, Ghana, Kenya, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and other countries.
