Scientists with Fudan University are teaming up with a
pharmaceutical company in neighboring Jiangsu Province to establish
a residents' health database, which is expected to ease prevention
and treatment of common diseases.
Conducted by the Taizhou Fudan Health Sciences Research
Institute, the database program will track health conditions of
about 30,000 residents in Taizhou, Jiangsu, for at least the next
two decades.
Researchers will record common diseases such as cardiovascular
problems, diabetes, cancer and mental illness, and try to analyze
the relationship between the diseases and people's daily
lifestyle.
Genetic analysis and family health history will also be taken in
the hope of unveiling how diseases develop, Fudan professors
said.
"The biggest goal of the unprecedented project is to set up a
national-level and open disease information database that could be
shared and used by all domestic research institutes and hospitals,"
said Lu Daru, professor with Fudan's School of Life Sciences.
Setting up a national health database containing systematic
information on diseases is a common practice in many Western
countries.
By studying the cause and spread of diseases, doctors can work
out how to prevent or treat conditions more effectively.
In China, however, only individual research groups compile
databases on specific diseases.
Lu explained that fast-paced modern life had changed people's
lives, which meant there was an urgent need for a health
database.
(Shanghai Daily November 21, 2007)