Health literacy rate shows steady rise

China's health literacy increased by over two percentage points year-on-year to reach nearly 32 percent in 2024 thanks to growing public attention paid to their personal health condition, the National Health Commission said on Friday.

The health literacy rate of 31.87 percent last year means that about three in 10 people in China had acquired basic health knowledge and skills.

Since surveillance data became available in 2012, the rate grew steadily from 8.8 percent in 2012 to 23.15 percent in 2020 and exceeded 30 percent for the first time in 2024, according to the commission.

"The persistent rise is driven by the public's growing attention on health and increasing demand for health knowledge, as well as continuous ramp-up of health education," said the commission.

The gap between urban and rural areas has further shrunk, as the health literacy rate in cities stood at 34.74 percent, compared to 29.11 percent in rural regions. While the rates in the less developed western and central provinces were still lower than the level seen in the eastern part of the nation, the discrepancy has also narrowed, data shows.

This year's survey involved about 71,800 people age 15 to 69 across all 31 provincial-level regions.

Survey participants were tested on a list of basic health-related knowledge and skills, such as whether they know that it is important to go through cancer screening to promptly detect cancer and precancerous lesions, and whether they can carry out cardiopulmonary resuscitation, an emergency treatment given to someone who stops breathing or suffers a heart attack.

These questions are divided into six categories. Survey results show that last year, Chinese people were the most educated in knowledge on safety and first aid as the literacy rate reached nearly 62 percent in this aspect.

By comparison, their grasp of health information on chronic diseases and infectious diseases is weaker, hovering around 30 percent.

China is intensifying efforts to improve the public's understanding of key health information, which is now considered "the most fundamental, economic and effective measure to improve health levels of the public," said central authorities.

In June last year, the commission, along with other government departments released an action plan, aiming to increase the overall health literacy rate by two percentage points each year from 2024 to 2027.

The action plan calls for expanding supplies of health education books and products and rolling out more awareness campaigns, as well as toughening crackdown on online misinformation and holding those spreading false information accountable.

wangxiaoyu@chinadaily.com.cn