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The New Health Educational Method of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Experience from Wuhan, China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2025
Abstract
The pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) threatens people’s lives, and they pay more attention to health than ever before. Medical workers and other members of society need to have knowledge of responding to medical emergencies, as does the public. With the improvement of the public’s health literacy, we will have more chances to prevent the development of the pandemic. The fifth-generation Pavilion of Health Emergency Experience (Wuhan, China) provides a new health interactive platform. It introduces advanced technology to present how these events happen, how they evolve, and how they are handled. With a deep understanding of the construction and structure of pavilions in this field both at home and abroad, we will know our limitations and make efforts to innovate. Therefore, we should make full use of the advanced technology of public health to benefit the people. And the fifth-generation pavilion deserves to generalize in other areas.
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc
References
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Figure 1. Infectious disease prevention and control area.
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The COVID-19 epidemic is raging around the world, threatening people’s health and even their lives. Also, it had a serious impact on the global economy and social development.Reference Kupferschmidt and Cohen 1 , Reference Liu, Zhou and Li 2 Generally, when a medical emergency occurs outdoors, first aid will be carried out from the scene,Reference Fenglan, Maolin and Guangmei 3 and the public will become the crucial people to do first aid. And when a public health event occurs, people will take measures such as washing hands, wearing masks, and disinfecting to prevent diseases. We can see that it is important for people to have more knowledge on how to respond to health emergencies to avoid circumstance deterioration in a short time. On the individual level, higher education increases individual competency and confidence. On the structural level, persons with higher levels of formal education (i.e., college/undergraduate and above) tend to have healthier living conditions because they work in well-paid, non-hazardous occupations, live in safe neighbourhoods, and have access to better health care.Reference Hoenig and Wenz 4 However, relevant literature shows that there are several problems when it comes to training in public health. For example, the scope of training is small, the form of training is single, and the professional training institutions are insufficient.Reference Xiaoyun, Changsong and Hengli 5 Therefore, it is necessary for the government to popularize the knowledge of emergency response to increase the knowledge and ability of the people.
The Pavilion of Health Emergency Experience
At present, most people get all kinds of information through magazines, television, the internet, and so on. In addition to the above ways, there is another approach to popularizing health knowledge and health education. The Pavilion of Health Emergency Experience (Wuhan, China), one of the deliverables of the emergency command system, has been updated to the fifth generation; and there has been no previous similar experience pavilion in Hubei Province. Compared to the previous design, the fifth generation introduces Virtual Reality technology. It allows users to experience real scenes and observe things in 3-dimensional space without limitation. In addition, the new pavilion is equipped with sound, light, television corner, experience space, and other equipment. By mobilizing the vision, hearing, and touch of visitors, they can feel the tense atmosphere, which is more conducive to learning and thinking. Therefore, visitors can experience the whole process of public health emergencies, and can deeply understand the real philosophy and values of health in a unique combination of functionality and design. When health emergencies occur, people can timely and correctly implement self-rescue and mutual rescue.
There are 3 main sections in the pavilion: infectious disease prevention and control area, item display area, and first aid area. In the infectious disease prevention and control area, which is shown in Figure 1, visitors can experience the working situation of health staff in emergency events via VR technology. Then, they will have a more intuitive feeling of what happens. At the same time, they will have a deep impression with the knowledge and skills of how to prevent and control diseases. In addition, there is printed knowledge of the entire process of the public health emergency response on the wall behind the background board. This process is premised on continuous decision-making, which includes elements of timely control, scientific mitigation, preparedness at any time, and social recovery. Therefore, people can do emergency response better, especially being quarantined at home by understanding the occurrence, course, and control of common infectious diseases.Reference Xiaodong, Jundong and Heping 6 Through this area, visitors know the harm of pandemic and the importance of prevention. Then they continue to visit the pavilion with thoughts. In the item display area, they will see the protective items used by health care workers. Combined with the text explanation, they were deeply impressed by the use of these items such as the personal protective equipment (PPE). PPE reduces the risk by covering exposed body parts. The result of an overview suggests that median contamination rates are 25% for the intervention and 67% for the control groups in PPE use. And a video lecture on donning PPE may lead to better skills scores than a traditional lecture.Reference Verbeek, Rajamaki and Ijaz 7 The item display area was set up for the above considerations. In the last area, people can personally operate instruments. One of the purposes of the first aid area is to teach the operation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the use of a defibrillator to rescue patients with cardiac arrests. Studies have shown that the success of CPR is low in a way that the success rate for cardiac arrests is less than 6% outside the hospital and less than 24% in the hospital.Reference Daya, Schmicker and Zive 8 , Reference Grasner, Lefering and Koster 9 However, the quality of CPR performed by citizens could be effectively improved by training experiences.Reference Fujie, Nakata and Yasuda 10 Therefore, it is significant to popularize the operation of first-aid and CPR so that the public can learn and master it.
Figure 1. Infectious disease prevention and control area.
Discussion
The advantage of the fifth-generation pavilion is that it provides an interactive mode to the participants. The basic characters of VR technology are immersion, interaction, and imagination. It regards computer technology as the core, creating a virtual environment integrating vision, hearing, and feeling, making human, machine, and environment interact dynamically. In the first area, the visitor participates in the event as a “victim.” In the second area, visitors learn about the necessary protective items as bystanders. And in the last area, they can learn how to save themselves in the face of real danger.
As early as more than 100 years ago, Germany set up a series of similar health museums, which became the place for the enlightenment of national health education. 11 The Army Medical Museum in the US contributed substantially to gross pathological and histological studies that documented wartime pathology, thus further contributing to the training of Army doctors.Reference Wright and Daniel Smith Lamb 12 There are also many cases resembling the design of the Museum of Health and Medical Science abroad.Reference Brown 13 In China, they were always built in prosperous cities; these pavilions haven’t been realized across the country due to their need for maintenance and cleaning. As a result, health literacy is unequal among populations and regions, especially in poor areas. However, as we all know, infectious diseases spread rapidly and affect areas widely. They are related to the health and lives of the whole world. COVID-19, a worldwide epidemic, is an example. It has taken more lives across the world than any other acute infection in a single outbreak for more than 100 years.Reference Jahromi and Mahmoudi 14 In our opinion, whether in the past or in the present, the prevention and control of diseases are priorities for the whole world. Professor Owen mentions that a medical museum should be a great library of history and pathology, where the student of medicine may come and study the history of disease and its pathology for the benefit of himself, his patients, and his nation. In a word, such pavilions and museums are not only for the student of medicine; they will be for everyone in future development. They can record events, direct how to protect ourselves and other people, and increase the knowledge around health emergencies. Furthermore, they can be also applied to infectious diseases, chronic diseases, public health emergencies, and other important issues. Through correct guidance, the popularization of health knowledge and the initiative of public health behavior will be improved.
Conclusion
In conclusion, with a deep understanding of the construction and structure of pavilions in this field both at home and abroad, we will clearly understand our limitations and make efforts to innovate. In a unique combination of functionality and design, visitors can experience the whole process of health emergencies, and can deeply understand the real philosophy and values of health. It can help people enhance health literacy and obtain knowledge of medical emergencies. We should make full use of advanced technology to benefit people, and the fifth-generation pavilion deserves to generalize in other areas.
Author contribution
All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. W.W. wrote the manuscript and approval for final submission; L.R. played a guiding role and revised the manuscript; X.C. contributed to critical revision of the manuscript and approval for final submission; X.T. edited the manuscript and approved it for final submission. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding statement
Authors have no funding acknowledgments to declare.
Competing interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.