publications from representative community settings

What does "Rudan and colleagues uncovered a treasure trove of Chinese language publications from representative community settings in China" mean?

I think "community settings" refers to "clinics and such in communities"?
Can you rewrite the sentence in plainer English?


Context:

In The Lancet this week, Igor Rudan and colleagues3 from the Child Health and Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) present information from a comprehensive analysis of hitherto unexplored Chinese scientific publications and data from the national surveillance systems. Rudan and colleagues uncovered a treasure trove of Chinese language publications from representative community settings in China, and analysed the information with standard CHERG methods to generate information about trends and causes of neonatal and child mortality rates. The results are striking and provide robust information about cause-specific child mortality estimates, trends, and differentials. The information is important, and although the findings are broadly similar to those obtained from a recent review based on the national Maternal and Child Mortality Surveillance System (MCMS), some aspects differ from official data.4, 5 The mortality denominators are also quite different. For example, the number of deaths caused by rotavirus infections in China was estimated to be about 10 400 per year in 2004.6 Today's analysis clearly suggests that, with fewer than 10 000 deaths per year associated with all-cause diarrhoea in China, the previous estimates were probably three times higher.