International Journal of Health Policy and Management

International Journal of Health Policy and Management

Shanghai’s Track Record in Population Health Status: What Can Explain It?; Comment on “Shanghai Rising: Health Improvements as Measured by Avoidable Mortality Since 2000”

Document Type : Commentary

Author
Tsung-Mei Cheng
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
10.15171/ijhpm.2015.117
Abstract
Health reforms that emphasize public health and improvements in primary care can be cost-effective measures to achieve health improvements, especially in developing countries that face severe resource constraints. In their paper “Shanghai rising: health improvements as measured by avoidable mortality since 2000,” Gusmano et al suggest that Shanghai’s health policy-makers have been successful in reducing avoidable mortality among Shanghai’s 14.9 million (2010) registered residents through these policy measures. It is a plausible hypothesis, but the data the authors cite also would be compatible with alternative hypotheses, as the comparison they make with trends in amenable mortality-rate (AM) in large cities in other parts of the world suggests.
Keywords
Population Health
Primary Care
Public Health in China
Universal Health Coverage
Leadership
Chinese Health Reform
Subjects
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  • Received Date 14 April 2015
  • Revised Date 20 June 2015
  • Accepted Date 19 June 2015
  • First Published Date 01 September 2015
  • Published Date 01 September 2015