Topic Page for China
China wants students to exercise eyes
From Reuters:
China's students should exercise their eyes twice a day to ward off nearsightedness that has reached near-epidemic proportions because of their long hours spent hitting the books, the education ministry has urged.
Below is a short clip of some primary school students in Shanghai doing their morning eye exercises.
BONUS: Michael Tomasello writing at NYTimes.com asks, "How are humans unique"?
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Posted by: David Porter on June 09, 2008
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Category: China; Health Care; eye exercises; eyesight
Cancer, stroke, and health disparities in China
China Daily is reporting on a new study by the Chinese Ministry of Health.
The study looked at the health of about 210 million Chinese across the nation. The primary finding was that cancer and stroke are the countries top killers.
In addition, the report found increasing disparities between the rural and urban areas of China.
The differences were reflective of the yawning gap between the country's rural and urban areas in terms of health awareness and living standards, [MOH spokesman Deng Haihua] said.
Disparities in economic development between rural and urban regions, which lead to an imbalance in medical care and health awareness, can influence the death rate in different areas, he said.
The number of deaths in the countryside was 19 percent higher than in urban areas. Within urban areas, the death rate in less developed western cities was 25 percent higher than in the more developed east.
Part of the problem is China's tremendous cigarette consumption. MSN reported that China consumes 2.3 trillion (2,300,000,000,000) cigarettes or two-fifths the world's total.
The China Daily article also mentions the infamous cucumber, "people in the rural regions of Hebei province like to eat homemade pickles that have high nitrite content, which can lead to cancer...."
You can read our other entries related to China at this link.
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Posted by: David Porter on April 30, 2008
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Category: Cancer; China; stroke
The state of healthcare in China
From Reuters:
China embarked on massive economic reforms three decades ago, and has since abandoned a cradle-to-grave welfare system, causing hardships for millions left behind by rapid development.
The costs of seeing a doctor or staying in hospital are out of reach for many in the world's fourth-largest economy and this lack of access combined with corruption has made the issue a source of social unrest.
[Health Minister Chen Zhu] said last week that market forces must not come to dominate China's health service, as they lead only to inequality and cause the vast and poor countryside to be ignored.
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Posted by: David Porter on January 09, 2008
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Category: China; Healthcare
Commercialization of Health Care Responsible for Disparities in China?
From Reuters:
Hong Kong-born Margaret Chan said the cost of health care in China was outstripping income growth and that poor health was a major cause of poverty among China's hundreds of millions of rural residents.
"The payment of providers and fees charged for services has commercialized health care, compelling providers of care to focus on profit rather than the most efficient health services," she told a conference in Beijing.
"Health education and preventive services are neglected. Why? Because these activities do not guarantee income. As a result, simple conditions are often treated at very high cost."
The costs of seeing a doctor or staying in hospital are out of reach for many in the world's fourth-largest economy, and the lack of access combined with corruption has made the issue a source of social unrest.
We blogged before about the effects of privatizing health care in China. However, one quote from the New England Journal of Medicine deserves repeating:
From 1978 to 1999, [China's] central government's share of national health care spending fell from 32 percent to 15 percent. At the same time, the central government transferred much of the responsibility for funding health care services to provincial and local authorities and required them to provide that support through local taxation. That had the immediate effect of favoring wealthy coastal provinces over less wealthy rural provinces and laid the basis for major and growing disparities between investments in urban and rural health care.
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Posted by: David Porter on November 01, 2007
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Category: China
Lead in toys. A Fact of Life for Some.
Across the U.S. stores are removing Mattel products because lead based paint was used during the manufacturing process.
While exhaustive, this type of recall does not remove all the potential hazards. Many small toys that are equally as dangerous can be found in vending machines and as free giveaways.
For example, these 2 stories from NYTimes.com:
That is just what happened in 2003, when doctors in Oregon found a lead medallion that had been purchased from vending machine in the stomach of a young boy who had complained of abdominal cramps and diarrhea.
And last year, Jarnell Brown, a 4-year-old in Minneapolis, swallowed a heart-shaped charm that had been given away by Reebok International as a sales incentive on its children’s footwear. Jarnell died after suffering vomiting, seizures and respiratory arrest. During the autopsy, a charm imprinted with the Reebok logo was removed from his stomach.
Exposure to lead, even small amounts, can affect normal brain development in children. Cleveland, which in 2002 was number 1 in the nation with regards to elevated blood levels in children, is currently working on this issue by lowering the threshold for lead poising.
But in some parts of the world the effort to protect children is not so great.
In one Reuters report we learn that Beijing was silent on the Mattel toy recall. The report goes on to say that "60 percent of Chinese-made toys used paint with lead above internationally accepted limits" and that it was business as usual in the toy stores across China.
"The worry isn't big toy makers that also export their products. The worry is small factories," said Feng Guoqiang, a childhood development specialist at Peking University's Health Science Centre.
For parents in China, it is just one more thing to worry about.
"There are just too many things to worry about," said Li Huijing, mother of a five-year-old girl. "There are some things I just try not to think about. I try to pay more for good toys."
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Posted by: David Porter on August 06, 2007
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Category: China
Chinese children die due to lack of medical care
Put this in the 'thinking globally' category.
From Reuters:
About 400,000 toddlers die every year in China mainly because of a lack of medical care, a member of a government advisory group said on Wednesday, urging greater investment in the health system.
The public in China is very dissatisfied with the current status of health care. This antipathy has increased since the trend towards privitization of health care in the 1980's.
From the New England Journal of Medicine:
From 1978 to 1999, [China's] central government's share of national health care spending fell from 32 percent to 15 percent. At the same time, the central government transferred much of the responsibility for funding health care services to provincial and local authorities and required them to provide that support through local taxation. That had the immediate effect of favoring wealthy coastal provinces over less wealthy rural provinces and laid the basis for major and growing disparities between investments in urban and rural health care.
Again from Reuters:
[Zhu Zonghan] estimated that the lives of 240,000 children could be saved if the government spent an extra 26 billion yuan ($3.36 billion) a year.
The government's spending on health accounted for 3.4 percent of its overall expenditure in 2006, but that figure would climb by only 0.1 percent to 3.5 this year, he told a meeting on the sidelines of China's annual meeting of parliament.
He labeled such an increase "useless".
"If you have money you live. If you don't, you are left to die," Zhu said, speaking about the disparity in health care between China's rich and poor.
Here are a few links to more information on health disparities and China.
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Posted by: David Porter on March 07, 2007
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Category: China; China; Health Disparities
Chinese children die due to lack of medical care
Put this in the 'thinking globally' category.
From Reuters:
About 400,000 toddlers die every year in China mainly because of a lack of medical care, a member of a government advisory group said on Wednesday, urging greater investment in the health system.
The public in China is very dissatisfied with the current status of health care. This antipathy has increased since the trend towards privitization of health care in the 1980's.
From the New England Journal of Medicine:
From 1978 to 1999, [China's] central government's share of national health care spending fell from 32 percent to 15 percent. At the same time, the central government transferred much of the responsibility for funding health care services to provincial and local authorities and required them to provide that support through local taxation. That had the immediate effect of favoring wealthy coastal provinces over less wealthy rural provinces and laid the basis for major and growing disparities between investments in urban and rural health care.
Again from Reuters:
[Zhu Zonghan] estimated that the lives of 240,000 children could be saved if the government spent an extra 26 billion yuan ($3.36 billion) a year.
The government's spending on health accounted for 3.4 percent of its overall expenditure in 2006, but that figure would climb by only 0.1 percent to 3.5 this year, he told a meeting on the sidelines of China's annual meeting of parliament.
He labeled such an increase "useless".
"If you have money you live. If you don't, you are left to die," Zhu said, speaking about the disparity in health care between China's rich and poor.
Here are a few links to more information on health disparities and China.
Send news items related to health disparities to ReduceDisparity(AT)case.edu
Posted by: David Porter on March 07, 2007
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Category: China; China; Health Disparities
Occupational Health Disparities in China
While we mostly blog about health disparties here in the U.S. it might be worthwhile to occasionally look at health disparities abroad.
In China, where over 90% of the population is of the same ethnicity, occupational health disparities exist.
From the People's Daily Online.
The incidence of occupational diseases had become a serious public health issue affecting social stability, said the Workers' Daily on Sunday, which reported Li's call for stricter health and safety measures.
and later.
Employees in low-profit and township enterprises had no access to occupational healthcare, and rural workers in urban cities faced high risks of occupational illness due to their high mobility, Li said.
and the numbers.
By the end of 2005, China recorded 665,043 cases of occupational illness, including 606,891 cases of pneumoconiosis, a chronic disease of the lungs resulting from long-term inhalation of dust and primarily affecting miners, sandblasters and metal grinders.
Nearly 10,000 new cases of pneumoconiosis emerged each year. On average, each pneumoconiosis patient suffered an annual financial loss of 34,100 yuan (4,300 U.S. dollars), said Li.
and looking forward.
The Ministry of Health is conducting a nationwide survey of the 200 million rural and migrant workers, and has vowed to provide basic occupational health services for them.
It would also set up a pilot network to improve reporting and monitoring of illnesses as the existing system was incomplete, said Su Zhi, deputy head of the ministry's supervision division.
He also suggested health files to be set up at migrant workers' hometowns, to which they usually returned during the traditional new year period, so that their state of health could be monitored.
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Posted by: David Porter on July 17, 2006
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Category: China; Health Inequities; occupational health