Public health crisis in China is about to accelerate the public health crisis in our world's population.

摘要

Our world population is facing a persistent epidemic of cardiovascular diseases. Unfavourable changes in cardiovascular risk factors have been seen in the western world for decades now. Yang et of. have now provided strong evidence to show that cardiovascular risk factors are becoming more common in China as well.Increased cardiovascular risk in the Chinese population implies a huge public health threat. A worrying 30% of the sample studied by Yang et al. had >3 cardiovascutar risk factors, which implies that at the Chinese population level, >300 000 million Chinese citizens have three or more cardiovascular risk factors. This number of Chinese subjects at increased risk is already a higher number than the total number of citizens in the USA, healthy and unhealthy subjects combined. If nothing happens, an enlarging Chinese population with cardiovascular risk factors will lead to an accelerated burden of public health in China, and at the world population level.When considering approaches to combat the epidemic of cardiovascular risk factors in China, one needs insights into: (i) the need for action (what is the actual problem, in whom?); (ii) determinants; (iii) strategies and designs; and (iv) possibilities for implementation. As the western world does have data on these steps, the Chinese are likely to benefit from the western experiences and evidence.