An innovative collaboration between research groups in Beijing,  China and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is leading to a better understanding of the state of the aging population in China.

Left to right: Xiaowei Song, Pulin Yu, Kenneth Rockwood, Chinese Community Doctors (3), Xianghua Fang

Led in Canada by Dr. Kenneth Rockwood of the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit (GMRU) and in China by Dr. Xianghua Fang at the Beijing Institute of Geriatrics, a team of researchers are spending three years working together on issues that arise due to an aging population

The increasing proportion of elderly people presents multiple challenges for health care, and this is particularly dramatic in China where  between 2000 and 2050, the proportion of people aged 65 and older will rise from 7% to 23%, numbering more than 332 million.

There is a great amount of health data on this population  accumulated in China, but the research capacity to process and explore these data is still limited.  This collaboration makes  use of resources and skills of those at the GMRU to help advance understanding of this problem in China.

Representing the Chinese team in Canada is Shi Jing, an epidemiologist who is not only acquiring the skills to analyze the Chinese datasets, but will take these skills back with her to China at the end of her one year stay here, and pass these on to other researchers there.

The Canadian team is currently preparing for a trip to China in May, where they will make several presentations at the 3rd National Conference of the Prevention of Common Diseases in the Elderly in Yichang Hubei, May 7-9.  The China-Canada Collaboration is funded jointly by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Institute of Aging) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.