Trends and Determinants of Healthy Aging in China

This book studies healthy aging in China based on analyses of the datasets of eight waves of longitudinal survey in 1998-2018 with worldwide largest sample of oldest-old. It consists of four parts. The first part reports the 6th, 7th, and 8th surveys of “Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey” (CLHLS), with the largest sample of oldest-old aged 80+ in the world and comparable sample of young-old aged 65–79, trends and characteristics of physical health and mental health of older adults in China based on analyses of the CLHLS datasets. The second part focuses on analyses and discussions of the influencing factors of healthy aging from perspectives of families, socioeconomics and community environments. The third part reports studies on the gender and age differences in main chronic diseases’ prevalence rates, inflammation, anti-oxidation, trace elements, effects of the nutritional dietary structure and the environmental selenium on health among the older adults. The fourth part focuses on the analyses and discussions of policy recommendations to face the serious challenges of the population aging in China and the database of the eight waves of CLHLS from 1998 to 2018, which are available free of charge to scholars, practitioners and general public for scientific research and socioeconomic planning. This book is easy to read and to understand by researchers and the general public, and no special professional background is required.

Yi Zeng is a professor of National School of Development and honorary director of Center for Healthy Aging and Development, Peking University. He is also a professor at the Center for Study of Aging and Human Development and Geriatric Division of School of Medicine, Duke University. He is a member of The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries, and a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his Ph.D. with Summa Cum Laude from Brussels Free University (1986) and pursued research as Post-doctoral Fellow at Princeton University (1986-87). Up to November, 2021, he has published 388 professional articles in domestic and international journals or as book chapters. He has published thirtyone academic books, including eleven books in English and 20 books in Chinese. Yi Zeng has been awarded four international academic prizes and eleven national academic prizes of China, such as: The International Union for Scientific Studies of Populations (IUSSP) 2021 Laureate which is awarded to one scholar annually worldwide, the Dorothy Thomas Prize of the Population Association of America, the Harold D. Lasswell Prize in Policy Science awarded by the journal Policy Sciences and Kluwer Academic Publishers, the best paper Award of American Journal of Public Health, the national prizes for advancement of science and technology, the highest academic honor of Peking University: "Prize for Outstanding Contributions in Sciences," and the national “Chinese Population Prize (Science and Technology).” In 2019, he received “National Medal of Outstanding Contributions” awarded by the Central Government of China.

Jiehua Lu is a professor of Department of Sociology and deputy director of Center for Healthy Aging and Development Studies at Peking University. He also serves as the vice president of Chinese Population Association and of vice president of Chinese Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics. He received his Ph.D. in Demography from Peking University (1997). His research areas include demography, gerontology, economics of population, and interaction between population and environment. He has been the principal investigator for over ten key projects and published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, such as “Chinese Women’s Family Status: Analysis of Chinese Decennial Survey, 1990–2010,” “Determinants Affecting Longevity at County Level in China,” “Patterns of living arrangements of the elderly in Mainland China: changes, consequences and policy implications,” etc. He authored/co-authored in over ten book chapters and books, such as "Chapter 3: Changing Patterns of Marriage and Divorce in Today’s China," Isabelle and Gu, Baochang (eds.), Analyzing China's Population: Social Change in a New Demographic Era. Berlin: Springer.

Xiaoyan Lei is a professor at National School of Development and the director of Center for Healthy Aging and Development at Peking University (PKU) in China. She also serves as the deputy director of PKU Center for Human Capital and National Policy, China. She is the editor of renowned publications such as China Economic Quarterly, Journal of Economics of Aging, and Journal of Health Economics. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, Los Angeles, USA (2007). Her areas of research interests include labor economics, health economics, the economics of aging and applied econometrics. She has been awarded many prizes, such as “Chinese Ministry of Education Yangtze River Young Scholar, PKU Boya Young Scholar” (2019), “China Medical Science and Technology Second Award” (2018), “Excellent Research in Art and Social Science, Peking University” (2013–2014), etc. She has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and authored/co-authored in many book chapters and books. One of her recent co-authored paper entitled “New trends in population aging and challenges for China’s sustainable development” has published in China Economic Journal in 2020. 

Xiaoming Shi is a professor and the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEH) at Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). He received his MD from Anhui Medical University of China (1999) and Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Health Statistics from China CDC (2005). He joined the branch of Infectious Disease Surveillance at China CDC in 2005 and then worked as the head of the Branch of Monitoring and Evaluation, Division of Chronic Diseases Control and Community Health at China CDC. Since 2015, he was appointed as the director of NIEH at China CDC. His research has focused on the determinants of health and longevity, risk assessments of air pollution, heavy metals and other environmental exposures, etc. He has extensive experiences working with numerous chronic diseases and aging studies in Chinese populations. He has published over 190 peer-reviewed journal articles and authored/co-authored in over ten book chapters and books. He is also the editor of many renowned publications such as Global Health Journal and Journal of Environmental & Occupational Medicine.