Guest Q&A|ZHENG Bingwen: Boosting Healthy China for 2030 SDGs

摘要：Broadening access to healthcare is an important part of achieving sustainable development. What remains to be done at the internat

Broadening access to healthcare is an important part of achieving sustainable development. What remains to be done at the international, national, and local levels to respond to public health crises? What parts of developing Asian countries' public health systems need to be strengthened most?

ZHENG Bingwen

Director, World Social Security Research Center, Chinese Academy ofSocial Sciences; Professor, School of Government, University of Chinese Academy of SocialSciences

The United Nations' 2030 SDGs include good health and well-being. This is a strong guarantee for universal health coverage, which inevitably includes how we respond to public health crises. In the past decade, China has made remarkable achievements in this area:

Improved policy frameworks. The Healthy China 2030 Plan established a life-cycle health service system in 2015. Subsequent reforms, such as the 2023 Guidelines for High-Quality Disease Prevention and Control, systematically reshaped the disease control system. The 2024 revisions to the Emergency Response Law have been implemented, and public feedback is being sought on draft changes to the Public Health Emergency Response Law.

Significant improvement in infrastructure. Significant increases in the number of health care institution beds and health care professionals, as well as expanded fiscal investments.

Achievements in infectious and chronic disease management. From 2015-2022, premature death rates decreased from 18.5% to 15.2%.

Maternal and child health. Maternal and infant mortality target rates have been met ahead of schedule.

However, challenges remain, including the unequal distribution of health resources - both between urban and rural areas, and between regions - as well as the increasing burden brought by non-communicable diseases, the public health system's insufficient resilience, the fragmentation of disease control efforts, the slow pace of information sharing and resource allocation during emergencies, and unresolved longstanding issues such as high medical costs and limited insurance coverage. Additionally, the number of basic medical insurance participants in urban and rural areas is declining, and reforms to payment methods for medical insurance and to centralized procurement for drugs and medical devices need further improvement.

In the next five years, despite challenges like an aging population, chronic diseases, and resource imbalances, China must continue focusing on its Healthy China strategy, strengthen the resilience of its system, promote equity and accessibility, and deepen international cooperation, to thereby contribute the country's wisdom to the 2030 SDGs.