Epidemiology of coronary arterial disease in the Chinese.

The occurrence of coronary arterial disease and, in particular, acute myocardial infarction in three Chinese communities, namely Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, was reviewed by using a multifaceted approach. Both the prevalence and death incidence of coronary arterial disease or acute myocardial infarction were much lower than those in most western countries: in these three places, the prevalence of coronary arterial disease, the incidence of mortality from coronary arterial disease, the incidence of acute myocardial infarction and the mortality from acute myocardial infarction were roughly one-eighth to one-quarter of the average western figures. While the prevalence and mortality figures have been declining in most affluent western countries, they have been increasing in these three large Chinese communities with 1200 million people. The implication of this increasing trend should certainly deserve more consideration in future planning in these regions. While aging is a contributing factor to such a trend, more work is required to delineate and assess the relative significance of the changes in the socioeconomic and coronary risk factors in the process of modernisation.