“Skin disease changes everything in your life” says Li Yi, Deputy Director of the China Chronic Skin Disease Fund under the Beijing Health Alliance Charitable Foundation. “It changes your outlook, your work, and your family and social life, and it makes you not want to go out into the world anymore.”

Li’s first brush with a skin condition came during a teaching fellowship in a rural province of southern China. There, the hot and humid climate triggered a sudden and dramatic outbreak of urticaria, commonly known as hives.

“One day, while teaching, I felt intense itching, as though I was being stung by mosquitoes all over my body. My students noticed and exclaimed, ‘Mr. Li, what’s wrong with you?’ When I looked down, I was horrified to see my arms and face covered in rashes,” remembers Li. “It was an embarrassing moment that left me feeling vulnerable.”

Thankfully, the solution in that case was relatively straightforward – Li’s symptoms resolved once his fellowship ended and he returned to the milder climate of northern China. But not long after, Li found himself struck by yet another skin condition.

Li had spent several years advancing in his career to the point that he had become the senior manager of corporate social responsibility at Alibaba, a massive, multinational technology company in China. But his success had come at a cost.

“I had been struggling with work-life balance, and the immense work pressure led to the development of a bald spot on my scalp,” explains Li.

In this case, the doctor’s recommendation was again something akin to a change in scenery. Rather than prescribe medications, Li’s physician advised that the best solution was to find a way to have less anxiety in his life.

“This made me realize how much I had neglected my mental health in favor of professional success and both experiences were wake-up calls that forced me to reevaluate my priorities and take a different path to recovery and self-care,” says Li.

“These experiences also made me realize I wanted to do something real that was truly focused on public welfare to make the world a little better.”

As a result, Li resigned from his job and took two months to recover and regain a sense of balance in his life. In addition to regaining his health, in the months that followed, Li’s professional life also took a turn for the better when he was approached with an opportunity that was a perfect match for what he wanted to do next.

Making the world a little better

As Li was recovering, the China Chronic Skin Disease Fund, or CCSD Fund, happened to be looking for someone experienced in designing corporate social responsibility initiatives to promote skin health in China. Although Li didn’t have public health experience, his work in social responsibility was exactly what they needed.

Even more importantly, Li was looking to make a difference by helping people who were facing similar struggles with skin diseases like those that he had overcome. From his experiences as a patient, Li had seen first-hand some of the gaps that existed for people coping with skin diseases.

Nearly a quarter of the Chinese population is estimated to suffer from a skin condition at some point in their lives. But despite this prevalence, awareness and understanding of these conditions are low and the diseases are often stigmatized.

“There were several moments when I felt lost or overwhelmed due to my skin conditions and the embarrassment of my urticaria outbreak made me hesitant to interact with students and colleagues,” says Li. “I felt like I was being judged for my appearance, which affected my confidence as a teacher.”

Basic knowledge about the causes of these diseases, as well as effective treatments, are still lacking in many parts of China. Changing this is part of the mission of the CCSD Fund, which has created a variety of activities aimed at supporting patients as well as frontline doctors.

For example, in 2025, the organization funded a group of expert dermatologists to visit rural locations to treat patients as well as educate local physicians.

In the first several months of the program, the experts had already visited over 4,500 patients across 27 regions and 16 provinces. Combatting misinformation and outright medical fraud has also been an essential component of the Fund’s activities.

“As a child growing up in China, it was very common to see advertisements on utility poles along the roadside for doctors who could cure psoriasis with a single needle,” says Li. “These scams still exist today, but it has shifted from utility poles to social media platforms.”

Li describes how there are still many people who may not have access to doctors or who avoid medical centers and instead turn to herbs or outlandish folk remedies.

“Correcting these misconceptions and sharing more scientific, positive, correct diagnostic and treatment concepts with our patients and doctors is really the goal of what our organization does,” says Li.

More than a lecture in a classroom

Socia media platforms are, of course, part of the foundation of the Fund’s approach, but another part of Li’s role has been to design innovative types of patient education. During his first three years at the Fund, he led the creation of stand-up comedy shows for psoriasis, as well as an interactive art gallery powered by ChatGPT for children with atopic eczema.

“Patient education doesn’t have to be a lecture in the classroom and we look for ways to help patients get together, have fun, and be able to talk about these diseases in a funny way,” says Li.

The Fund has also recently supported the production and distribution of the first movie in the world about psoriasis patients. The movie was available for streaming on all major platforms in the country and it received more than 9 million views and 16 million interactions and comments.

“This movie is not only for patients, but also their families and the public because we want them all to understand what this disease is, and that it’s not contagious, and to help patient voices be heard,” Li says.

The Fund has also sponsored free informational resources such as the 365 Q&A of Psoriasis, which compiled patients’ most common questions about the disease together with answers from expert physicians and pharmaceutical companies.

“Often doctors and patients don’t always understand each other,” explains Li. “With these resources, we’re trying to build a common language and a bridge to make these interactions easier.”

The Q&A guide was so successful that the Fund has created similar guides for other skin diseases such as atopic eczema and urticaria. The drafting of these documents also revealed that there was another critical resource that urticaria patients were lacking.

“We realized that there was no patient organization for chronic spontaneous urticaria,” says Li. “So that’s when I helped found Chronic Urticaria, or CU, Dreamland, the first chronic urticaria patient group in China.”

Bringing dreams within reach

Led by Li, the Fund established a dedicated organization for people with chronic urticaria in September 2024, just before World Urticaria Day. Li now leads a team of close to a dozen people who run the organization, plan new projects, and advocate for increased support for urticaria patients.

“Part of why we selected the name ‘Dreamland’ was that we’re working to help people understand that even though they have a skin disease, they can still chase their dreams,” says Li.

Continuing on that theme, the organization runs a dedicated WeChat group, called Dream Garden, which currently has nearly 300 patient members. The Dreamland organization also puts together resources like a professional care guide with tips for how patients can prevent outbreaks, particularly in the summer.

“We’ve made this a platform where patients can ask their questions and we will consult experts to get the right answers,” explains Li. “I try to talk to at least one patient every day on the platform, and we always plan activities where patients can meet in person too.”

Beyond this, Li’s role also includes promoting international collaborations, for example by showcasing their patient care programs at events like the GlobalSkin 2025 Conference, which took place in Prague, in the Czech Republic.

“Skin diseases may not be life-threatening, but they can deeply affect your social life, self-esteem, and overall quality of life,” says Li. “We believe that everyone deserves healthy skin and making that possible is the vision of our organization.”