Epidemic of chronic diseases and the related healthy lifestyle interventions in rural areas of Shandong Province, China.

Background: There were amounts of previous studies on chronic diseases, but few studies on the prevalence of chronic disease and the healthy lifestyle intervention in recent years, China. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of chronic disease and the implementation of healthy lifestyle intervention in rural areas of China, so as to put forward health promotion measures to control the chronic diseases effectively.

Method: A large cross-sectional study (N = 2168) on community diagnosis and chronic disease was carried out in Shandong province, China. The chronic disease questionnaire and the healthy lifestyle intervention questionnaires were recruited to survey the chronic diseases and the implementation of healthy lifestyle intervention. Physical examination and biochemical indicators examination were carried out by the medical staffs and clinical laboratory.

Results: The current diagnosed prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia for total sample, female, male were 24.97, 24.6, 25.5, 7.60, 8.9, 6.0 and 40.27%, 45.9, 33.3% respectively in rural China. The one-year prevalence of myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke of the total sample, female, male were 1.06, 1.0, 1.1 and 2.09%, 2.2, 2.0% respectively. Healthy lifestyles interventions were not effective in rural China. The current active smoking rate and passive smoking rate were 25.68 and 42.65%. 27.86% of the population drunk alcohol within a month and 47.01% of them participated in the actions to control salt daily intake. Only 1.07 and 7.89% of the population participated in medium to high intensity physical exercises.

Conclusions: The prevalence of common chronic diseases were still high and the implementation of healthy lifestyle intervention were not optimal in rural area, China. Challenges to prevent chronic diseases were still severe, so medical institutes, government and individuals would put forward effective strategies to reduce the prevalence and public health promotion project should be effectively strengthened.