ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the health and health resources available to the Chinese population. Health statistics bears limited meaning when deprived of a context; its significance stems from an examination of the changes that have occurred over time in the society under study and from cross-cultural comparisons. The chapter presents long term trends in the People's Republic of China (PRC) after the PPC came to power in 1949, and to compare these data with health statistics available for eight other Asian societies. The crude all-causes mortality rate in China decreased steadily after the revolution, but this trend seems to have ended during the late 1970s. Increase in mortality rate is often attributed to a decline in fertility and the consequent aging of the population. The moderation of the decline in infant mortality in the PRC is also evident when the actual rate is compared with that predicted on the basis of China's income level.
