Changes of Adult Population Health Status in China from 2003 to 2008

Sun, Hongpeng; Zhang, Qiuju; Luo, Xiao; Quan, Hude; Zhang, Feng; Liu, Chang; Liu, Meina

There are several possible explanations for the above findings. First, China's population has been in very rapid transition from a youthful to an aging population as life expectancy has increased [24, 25, 26] . Birth rates have fallen, and China's one-child family policy has been a strong driver of population aging [27] . The rapid decrease in China's birth rate, combined with stable or improving life expectancy, has led to an increasing proportion of elderly people. In 1982, only 7.6% of the population was aged .60 years; this proportion grew to 10.5% by 2000. In our study this proportion was 13.6% in 2003 and 15.4% in 2008. The UN predicts that .453 million Chinese will be aged .60 years by 2050 [28] . This so-called graying of China's population has increased the incidence rates of diseases associated with elderly populations, and will become more problematic in future [29] .