China is currently experiencing a crisis in regards to chronic diseases of aging. Today, the nation is home to 222 million people over the age of 65, a number projected to increase to 480 million by 2050. Dishearteningly, another statistic that is also on the rise is the number of those seniors diagnosed with some form of dementia (such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease), from 3.5 million individuals in 1990 to 9.6 million in 2010. Such a trend leaves a large socioeconomic burden on Chinese society. Unpaid care, almost exclusively from close family, makes up the vast majority of dementia caregivers in China. Thus, younger working generations not only receive emotional strain from declining parental mental health conditions but must also contribute significant time and resources towards managing such maladies, reducing their workforce participation in many cases. This subsequently leads to a decrease of productivity and substantial economic loss, with conservative estimates projecting dementia’s annual financial burden for China to increase to over $1 trillion by 2050.

Despite massive strides in recent years, the Chinese healthcare system is still unprepared to handle the upswing of new cases. Awareness of “senile dementia” in China is relatively low, with only 65% of Beijing nurses correctly identifying Alzheimer’s cases and there being no standardized national intervention plan. Additionally, the country possesses only 722 dementia-qualified hospitals and 300 experienced physicians, and it is estimated that an additional 10 million caregivers are needed in order to offset this expertise & facility shortage. Because of these factors, members of the affected community are often prone to receiving inadequate care. In the case of my own grandmother, she did not receive any symptom-alleviating drugs, therapy, or regular doctor visits even after it was apparent her memory was deteriorating. With the rise of dementia, China’s unprecedented economic expansion has left deep growing pains.
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However, public health organizations affiliated with the Chinese government, such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, have begun to take interest in and focus increasing amounts of resources on controlling the dementia issue. These agencies are largely looking to model their treatment protocols off mainstream Western methods and often seek the advising of U.S.-based medical professionals or faculty at research institutions. Additionally, many dementia technologies, such as automated diagnosis tests, are being developed in the United States and might find a welcome audience in China, especially in light of the country’s recent embrace of digital health. Therefore, I hope to pursue a future career at the intersection of healthcare and technology in order to create possible interventions against the rise in chronic diseases of aging (such as dementia/Parkinson’s) that plagues China especially. In this context, medical collaboration between the U.S. and China could play an increasingly vital role, making it important to learn more about US-China relations through opportunities such as Duke-UNC CLS.