The prevalence of hypertension and stroke in China is among the highest in the world, making salt reduction a public health priority. Given this, the George Institute for Global Health and Queen Mary University of London have joined with Chinese health authorities including the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Centre for Health Education and China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment to develop a unit on salt reduction; Action on Salt China (ASC).
The aim of ASC is to develop and implement a comprehensive and sustainable salt reduction program, especially focusing on home cooking, restaurants and pre-packaged foods, with the program running from 2017 to 2021. Four randomized control trials will be conducted with the purpose of developing and testing a series of tools and packages on salt reduction targeting the main food providers in the Chinese population.
Specific strategies for health education and an update of nutrition information labelling legislation for pre-packaged food have been designed and will be implemented during the research stage (2017-2020) and scale-up stage (2020-2021). Six provinces will be covered during the research stage, while the whole nation will be covered when scaling up. A series of advocacy events will be conducted targeting food processing companies, restaurants and home cooks.
Photo, from left to right:
- Puhong Zhang, Associate Director, the George Institute, China.
- Changning LI, Director of Chinese Centre for Health Education
- Zhaosu Wu ,Chairman of World Hypertension League
- Xinhua Li, Party secretary of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
- Graham MacGregor, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute, QMUL.
- Longde Wang, Academician, President of the Chinese academy of preventive medicine- Members of ASC Governing Council
- Qunan Mao, Director of Disease Control Bureau, National Health Commission
- Craig Anderson, Executive Director, The George Institute for Global Health(China office)
- Weixing Yan, Deputy Director of China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment