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

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

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.

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References

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History

  • Receive Date: 14 April 2015
  • Revise Date: 20 June 2015
  • Accept Date: 19 June 2015
  • First Publish Date: 01 September 2015

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