Introduction

Health patterns in Southeast Asia have changed in profound respects over the past century, and so have the medical connections between Southeast Asia, China, and international institutions. With the support of the China Medical Board in commemoration of its hundredth anniversary, the project will reflect on the history of public health in Asia over the past century. It will develop a new approach to the transnational history of health in Southeast Asia, examining the sites of interaction and exchange in which ideas about medicine and health travelled and were transformed.

Our proposed collaboration will involve a series of meetings convened together with Asian partner institutions, leading up to a larger conference in 2014 that will bring together this project on Southeast and South Asia with the China Medical Board’s parallel project on China. The project will culminate with the publication of a volume of essays in late 2013, including contributions from scholars based in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, India, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.