China should do more to curb a rise in non-communicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes that have long been neglected and now pose a risk to its economy, global health experts warned.
Non-communicable diseases challenge China’s economic development and cause a burden on society, said Bernhard Schwartländer, the World Health Organization’s representative in China, in a press briefing on Tuesday. “The cost of inaction, of doing nothing—in lives lost and social and economic prosperity foregone—is too great a price to pay,” he said.
He was joined by representatives of China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission and China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Schwartländer said that high rates of smoking, lack of exercise and unhealthy diets have contributed to diseases. He said that the Chinese government should adopt policies to address problems, which have been overlooked and underfunded.
By 2015, the burden of death and health complications related to non-communicable disease will have cost $500 billion in the last decade, Dr. Schwartlander said. Reducing mortality only by addressing cardiovascular disease, reducing rates 1% per year in by 2040, would generate $10.7 trillion, he said.
Health care was largely left out a reform agenda Chinese leaders unveiled on Tuesday, though it briefly mentioned improving people’s welfare and strengthening reform of the medical and health system. China launched in 2009 an overhaul of its health-care system, establishing a universal insurance system to provide citizens more access to medical care.
China is struggling to deal with a population that is urbanizing, aging and is afflicted with chronic disease. Migration of millions of Chinese citizens to big cities from rural regions has spurred use of cigarettes, higher alcohol intake and increasingly sedentary lifestyles—all habits that lend to illness.
Now China is home to the world’s largest diabetes population, with the prevalence of 11.6% of the population-surpassing Russia’s population, said Li Guangwei, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Chronic disease is the cause of 85% of deaths in China, according to China’s Ministry of Health. By comparison, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the rate is 70 per 100 in the U.S., while the World Health Organization says they represent 63% of deaths world-wide.
Funding remains a major issue, experts said. China’s health spending as a percent of GDP totaled 2.3% in 2011, compared to U.S. spending of 9.7%, according to the most recent data available from the World Bank.
Community clinics are overrun with patients and lack resources needed to address health problems, said Wang Bin, the deputy director the Disease Control and Prevention department of China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission.
Tobacco control remains underfunded, said Jiang Yuan, deputy director of the Tobacco Control Office of China’s CDC. The government allocated only 20 million yuan (about $3.3 million) last year for tobacco control, Ms. Jiang said.
Dr. Schwartländer said it isn’t likely that the China will reach the target set for it by the WHO to cut smoking rates in China by at least 30% by 2025. Currently 28% of people older than 15—301 million people—are smokers in China and smoking-related sickness kills more than one million Chinese citizens each year, according to WHO data. That compares to 43.8 million smokers in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Experts said that the government should not shoulder all the responsibilities to improve health conditions and that citizens should adopt healthier lifestyles by eating less salt, exercising more and cutting bad habits like smoking and drinking . “People are the owners of their own health,” said Dr. Wang, adding, “We’re at an important window in China.”