Various Policies and Programs
2 min readThe Chinese government has acknowledged the consequences of rapid population aging and has started to address them in various policies and programs：
Strategies for long-term care.Though public funding for the long-term care of the elderly in China is still limited，the Chinese government has started to allocate more funding in this area.At the same time，new opportunities for entrepreneurship in the health service industry have opened result of China’s social-welfare reform in the 1990s，which decentralized government-funded welfare institutions and significantly reduced their government financing.
Today，an increasing number of private elder homes as well as the country’s former government-sponsored elder homes（which used to be reserved exclusively for elderly with no children and no other means of sup-port）are providing an alternative to familial elder care.However，these facilities are sill small in number，of varying standards，and are often too expensive for many elderly and their families.
Community-based long-term care services for the elderly in informal and local government-supported have also begun to emerge，especially in urban areas.These efforts are serving various needs of the elderly and their family caregivers，including daily care，home maintenance，and information and referral services.
The lack of a trained workforce in caregiving to elderly is an important issue facing China’s long-term care delivery system.Some local government agencies（such as the labor union and the department of health）are training laid-off workers to work in long-term care，but these training programs are short and cover only limited basic caregiving skills.
Strategies for primary and secondary prevention.China’s ministry of health has also been addressing chronic disease prevention and control.
The ministry is also working to develop the first long-term（from 2005 to 2015）comprehensive national plan for chronic disease control and prevention in cooperation with relevant sectors and supported by the World Health Organization（WHO）.Reducing adult male smoking，hypertension，overweight and obesity，and building capacity for chronic disease control are among the plan’s highest priorities.
Programs targeted toward specific diseases have also increased.
These efforts include a community-based intervention on management ofhypertension and diabetes conducted in three cities（Beijing，Shanghai，and Changsha）between 1991 and 2000；a national cancer control plan，the Program of Cancer Prevention and Control in China；and ratification of the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control.Furthermore，to prevent chronic disease at early ages，projects to improve nutrition and health status have been undertaken.These proiects are focused mainly on primary schools and have achieved encouraging reductions（by as much as 30 percent in one year in one example）in the prevalence of childhood obesity.
