for those of you who thought combining 80-100 hours work weeks, eating AMCHAM buffets, binge drinking, smoking and sleeping 4-5 hours, then you should read the third paper of Lancet’s recent China series

As recently reviewed in Newsweek, the recent changes diet, the sedimentary lifestyle, and the added stress of working in one of China’s many new shiny buildings has reduced the life expectancy for many of its middle class.

It is a trend that I have seen among many friends who “work hard and play harder” buy putting in 100 hour weeks and blowing off steam in one of Shanghai’s many clubs over the weekends.  It takes its toll… for some it means taking a detox trip to Thailand, for others it means being admitted to the hospital for exhaustion .. or as my friend put it, “paid leave”

For the Lancet, the answer was preventative medicine and a proactive government that would:

promote less salt and more fruit and vegetables in the diet, more exercise, and anti-smoking campaigns

In addition to that, I would also encourage Beijing to focus on developing stronger psychiatry, update their family planning regulations, continue working to improve the overall environment in which people live, and improve the quality of food and water that people are taking into their bodies.

These measures are also very important to the overall health of a person’s mind, body, and soul…

The Lancet, a 180 year old medical journal, has compiled an amazing - and important - collection of health related China articles.

An unprecedented scientific collaboration on China and global health launched by The Lancet, Peking University Health Sciences Centre, and the China Medical Board, was launched in Beijing on Oct 20, 2008.

This Series—focusing on health-system Reform in China—consists of 19 commissioned research papers that bring together the most recent scientific evidence on China’s major health challenges, its health strategies, and China’s health future. The Series was produced by a team of 63 scientists, with Chinese scientists constituting two-thirds of the authors, collaborating with an international team from 10 countries.

There are already over 20 articles that cover health care reform, HIV/ AIDS, China’s Barefoot doctors, Research ethics, and others

There is even a podcast: of Bill Summerskill from The Lancet, and China’s Minister of Health, Chen Zhu.

with the current state of China’s healthcare system being very fragile, and with the needs of the system only increasing, the work that is being represented holds real importance and I suggest everyone take the time to read through the articles that they feel are most important to them, their company, or their family.

Besides water, there is no other topic I believe is more important for China.

Several years back, I had a friend who was going through a rough time.  They were burned out, marriage was busted, and was in need of someone to talk to.

The problem was, that no one was there, and that only added to the anxiety of the situation.

Psychologists and Psychiatrists in China at that time were few and far between, and the ones that were available were often poorly trained to boot.  this was highlighted during the 5.1 earthquake as NGOs around China began announcing their mental health programs… but were unable to find the counselors to do the job.

the article As stress grows, modern Chinese turn to Western psychotherapy, offers some interesting insights into the history of psychiatry in China and the hurdles it faces in gaining wider acceptance:

Psychotherapy, which gained an entry in China with the country’s first psychology institute in 1917, was disparaged as unscientific after the Communists took power in 1949. It was banned during the Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong, which ended in 1976.

China’s traditional culture values “saving face,” which means emphasizing the positive and addressing embarrassing issues obliquely. This approach conflicts with the process of openly discussing problems that is inherent to most psychotherapy.

Where I see this as especialy troubling is that in no other country have I seen the levels of family displacement as I have seen in China.  families, particularly of the poorer regions, make huge personal sacrifices to attain economic benefit.

My first ayi was a perfect example - she worked in Shanghai for almost 10 years while her husband worked in Guangdong on a construction site.  Their 4 children were living with her parents, and the entire situation was hard on everyone.  Kids were acting out, rebeling in school, and she and her husband were not really living a life as husband and wife.  At the minimum, the children would have benefited, but no doubt were she and her husband able to afford it for themselves, a few sessions would have benefited them as well.

And this story is repeated millions of times over.

In the grand scheme of things, one of the keys to stability in China is the ability of its citizens to remain mentally balanced.

There are a lot of ways that China has incorporated a lot of unhealthy vents into the system to let off steam (alcohol, smoking, massage parlors, internet bars, KTVs, etc), but to achieve mental stabilty long term it will need to address the core issues that people face rather than gloss them over with a bit of “entertainment”.

In doing a little more research on the HIV/ AIDS issues I covered a couple week back, I ran into an excellent paper from the Center for Strategic and International Studies called China’s Civil Society Organizations - What Future in the Health Sector? that documents a study done to understand what the role of civil society organizations (NGO) have in supporting the HIV/ AIDS situation in China.

From June 13 to June 20, 2007, a senior-level delegation organized by the CSIS Task Force on HIV/AIDS traveled to Beijing and Chengdu, China, to examine the current and potential role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in addressing China’s public health care challenges.

As many of you who are long time readers, or are leading an NGO will know, the history of NGO activity and relationship between the government and NGO have been up and down.  There have been times when NGOs have been a reliable partner on a public level (Sichuan earthquake) and there have been times when NGOs have found themselves left out.

This report recognizes that right off, and then moves straight into where they fell CSOs, particularly international CSOs, can play the most productive role:

• Invest greater resources into building the capacity of CSOs in China to make a more constructive contribution to alleviating health care challenges.
• Foster greater governmental and societal support for the valuable work CSOs can offer.
• Expand the role of universities, associations, government-organized nongovernmental organizations (GONGOs) and other government-related brokers.
• Encourage a greater role for the private sector and philanthropic giving.
• Develop near- and longer-term indicators of success for CSOs and their impact on addressing health care needs in China.
• Support a steady evolution and expansion of health-related CSOs, rooted in Chinese pragmatism, values, and sociopolitical realities.

All excellent recommendations, and it is why I highly recommend readers take the time to read the rest of this 22 page report.  Once again, you can download it here.

Following up quickly on a post last week where I highlighted that Shanghai would become the blood collection and testing center for China, there was a line at the bottom of the original article that the blood bank would be holding a contest in late October.

Details can be found at the Shanghai Blood Bank website.

As you can see, they are already highlighting the model citizens, and this is a great opportunity to do something as an individual, as a group of friend, or as a corporate team.

It doesn’t hurt, and there are few actions that a person can take that are so directly tied to saving another person’s life.

Located within its 2007 CSR Report, OKI has a 2 page section on their China based CSR activities.  Concise, within the 2 pages we can see that the firm is investing in its people, looking to meet environmental standards, and has a small (but growing) community program where they are building schools, playing baseball, and donating blood.

Not overloaded with data, but a nice way to make sure to cover China as part of the overall report when many others have yet to take that step.

To read more about their CSR practices you can click here, or read their special section on meeting their CSR commitments

Watching my housekeeper wash my 17th story windows enlightened me a great deal.  She was dangling out the window with a wet rag in one hand and a firm grip on the open window frame on the other.  In my mind, I was thinking a stiff breeze or a hiccup was all it would take for her to lose her balance, and from that day forward she had a long broom to work with.  She was not to dangle herself out of my window again.

To me, it was pretty clear, but to her it was just a normal part of doing the job.  A risk she was willing to take.

have been in factories where goggles and hearing protection were provided by management (sometimes even customers who were concerned), but they go unworn because they are uncomfortable or are not seen as needed “at that moment”

Whether you look at the coal industry, stamping, or dozens of other dirty jobs that exist, there are people who are willing to take those jobs and risk life or limb everyday as part of their jobs.  Some say it is due to the “it will never happen to me” attitude, while others say there is no other way.  That they have to take the job to pay bills, save for their child’s tuition, or take care of an ill family member

This recent article (warning: the first picture is GRAPHIC), highlights a recent case of a worker who was impaled by a piece of rebar on a construction site.

This construction worker underwent life-saving surgery after a 3ft-long metal screw fell from a bridge and speared his throat.

Now, were he wearing safety equipment (ropes), perhaps he would not have fallen from the bridge, but anyone who has been to a construction site in China will tell you that the ropes were probably 1 of 100 safety items that were missing, and his case is not all that uncommon.

It is interesting that only 10 months ago, China’s labor law came online, yet no where in the law does it address labor safety.  China’s union, All China Federation of Trade Unions, is as the only union in China supposed to be looking out for its members on issues of safety, but many will tell you that they do not fulfill that role to the level they should.

There are NGOs on the ground who are working on these issues, and of course there are plently of audit firms who will galdly inspect the conditions at facilities their clients need, but where is the larger policy piece.  Where is OSHA?

How much of workplace safety is part of vocational training?

Many coalminers, he says, are “really only concerned with getting enough wages to live on today. They don’t really think about the consequences once they leave a mine, and they’re not aware of the problems of work-related illness or accidents until they actually happen.”

Perhaps one of China’s most dangerous jobs publicly, ever year sees thousands of coal miners perish in accidents.  Unreported, there are many more who are sick and suffering from black lung.

Shaft of light for China’s coalminers offers some insight into the legal process of one of China’s first legal cases whereby a former miner is suing his former employee for compensation.

Between 1995 and 2002, Mr Xiao worked in several small mines not far from his home village. At the time, he says he didn’t consider the health impacts. Earning about 1000 yuan ($A190) per month, the job was a good way for the illiterate father of two to get ahead. Mr Xiao also says he was never asked by his employer to undergo a health check, a requirement by law, when he stopped work.

What is interesting to me when reading this is

(1) Were mines providing safety equipment, the 600,000 men reported in this article as in stage 3 would not be sick;

(2) Were there an agency who was tasked to oversee the working conditions of these men/ women, then perhaps employers would be forced to provide such equipment or face penalties

(3) There is clearly a gap in the new labor law in addressing the safety of workers

(4) at some point in the future, China’s industrial base will have to face this problem as China’s maturing populace has begun to show publicy that there are some prices they are no longer willing to pay.

Caught in the middle of China’s milk scandal, this clip asks the question - is Fonterra a good corporate citizen. It is certainly a fair question as there have been reports that fonterra knew of this problem well in advance and when faced with working with their partner to “resolve” the issues vs. warn consumers, they chose the former.

Watch the clip and let us know what you think.

Note: If you are China based, you can only watch through the site. Every time I try to access through Yutube directly the site is uh.. timed out.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMZ_2FFFF_Y/youtube]

China, as we covered in the recent post Pattern of HIV Changes in China, has had its fair share of problems when it comes blood collection, monitoring, and distribution.

It was an issue that Kaiser Family Blog post China’s Blood Supply Not Being Monitored Properly address, but more recently we saw this first hand during the earthquae relief when cities were not initially allowed to send blood from their banks to the affected regions.  It was in part a logistics problem (lack of cold chain), but it was primarily a system by which prevented regional contaminatoins.

a process that the new system will hopefully prevent:

All eight umbrella branches of the Shanghai Blood Center had been linked with a sophisticated information system, said officials from the Shanghai Health Bureau.

The clinics will store the blood while samples are being screened, before distributing it to hospitals that need it.