Compared to the 1970s, men in China today are living 20 percent longer, while women have added 24 percent more years to their lives.

This is according to a comprehensive study of China's shifting health profile that will be published this weekend in The Lancet. Featuring in-depth analysis and rigorous data gathered between 1990 and 2010 by 488 researchers from 50 countries, the study was organized by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a US-based research organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Included are findings on China's life expectancy rate, child mortality, the development and treatment of 231 diseases and the impact of 67 risk factors including smoking, air pollution and other factors driven by modernization.

Data were gathered from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study 2010 (GBD 2010), and compared to 18 other countries in the G20, according to IHME.

The study found that between 1970 and 2010, male life expectancy in China increased from 60.4 years to 72.9 years, and female life expectancy rose from 63.5 years to 79 years. The mortality rate for children under five plummeted from 100.6 per 1,000 to 12.9 per 1,000, improvements credited to an improved standard of living, the expansion of various government-sponsored vaccine programs and rapidly increasing income levels.

But even as China has made significant strides in combatting communicable (or contagious) diseases such as tuberculosis and respiratory infections, modernization and urbanization have contributed to the rise of non-communicable diseases like cancer, stroke, ischemic heart disease and obstructive pulmonary disease. Decreasing physical activity, poor diet, smoking and air pollution are all contributing factors. According to IHME, in 2010 the leading causes of death in China were stroke (1.7 million deaths), heart disease (848,700) and obstructive pulmonary disease (934,000).

Hailing from institutions the world over, including the Chinese Center for Disease Control, the Harvard School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins and Peking Union Medical College, the researchers and disease experts collaborated and debated findings for several years in order to reach consensus on what they consider to be an important study with the potential to impact policy in China.

"The significance of this study is its comprehensiveness," said Haidong Wong, an assistant professor of global health with IHME at the University of Washington. Wong contributed to the report in the area of mortality estimation and projection. "The number of people who contributed and collaborated on this study is quite unique, because normally research only focuses on one disease or one risk factor, which can contribute to inaccuracy in the larger picture. You have to link these things together, and consider them in the same framework to gain a clearer idea of the significance and meaning of the data"

kdawson@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 06/07/2013 page5)