International peer exchange program fosters professional identity

Occupational therapy (OT) in Mainland China falls under the umbrella of “rehabilitation therapy,” an area of medicine that includes physical therapy, speech-language pathology, and traditional Chinese medicine. In the early 1980s, the growing demand for rehabilitation services in China led to the introduction of contemporary Western concepts of rehabilitation (World Health Organization [WHO], 2008; Zhou, 1991). Specifically, in 1983, the first training course on rehabilitation medicine was organized, and in 1989, 3-year diploma courses in rehabilitation therapy emerged in various parts of China (Chen, 2001). Over the years, there has been gradual specialization within the field, and educators from Hong Kong and Japan have contributed to establishing occupational therapy (Sakellariou & Pollard, 2016). In 2016, the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy partnered with the Peking University Health Science Center (PKUHSC) to form the China Initiative, a collaborative effort to support the advancement of the OT profession in Mainland China.