From June 29 to 30, Dean Laura McDougall of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, Canada, visited Wenzhou to conduct field research at the Wenzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Chashan Street Community Health Service Center in Ouhai District. She was accompanied by Professor Wang Fang, Party Secretary of the School of Public Health at Wenzhou Medical University (WMU), Professor Liu Jiaming, Associate Dean, and Professor Shan Yujuan, Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene.

Dean McDougall’s first stop was the Wenzhou CDC, where she was warmly received by Yu Xianghua, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the CDC, who accompanied her throughout the visit. She toured the CDC’s distinctive public education venues—the Public Health Narrative Center and the Health Book Corner—gaining first-hand insight into Wenzhou’s public health culture and health promotion efforts. During a subsequent discussion, Yu Xianghua provided a detailed overview of the CDC’s development, organizational structure, talent development, key discipline building, and emergency response capabilities. After the meeting, Dean McDougall visited various operational departments to observe daily workflows and learn about their functional layouts and routine activities. She highly praised Wenzhou CDC’s standardized and modernized public health prevention and control system, as well as its refined and regulated management practices.

On June 30, Dean McDougall visited the Chashan Street Community Health Service Center to investigate primary-level public health services. She was received by Cao Ruijun, Party Branch Secretary; Huan Wei and Ye Han, Deputy Directors; and Wang Xianna, Director of the Nursing Office. At the frontline service site, Dean McDougall toured key areas including the general consultation rooms, vaccination clinic, chronic disease management unit, public health record office, and key population health management room. Local officials detailed their achievements in establishing standardized health records for residents, implementing closed-loop management for hypertension and diabetes, conducting health check-ups for the elderly, providing comprehensive reproductive and child health services, and delivering standardized immunization programs. Dean McDougall affirmed the center’s solid progress in integrating medical care and prevention, refined chronic disease management, and accessible health services. She noted that Wenzhou’s grassroots public health model is mature, practical, and highly replicable—offering valuable lessons for international reference.

This field visit, which spanned both municipal and district-level public health systems in Wenzhou, has built a strong practical bridge for deepening institutional collaboration between the two universities. Looking ahead, both sides will continue to promote two-way exchanges in grassroots public health, leveraging joint practice, resource sharing, mutual learning, and complementary strengths to enhance the joint training of interdisciplinary public health talents between China and Canada, and to contribute to the high-quality development of global health governance.