Survival
Ensuring that newborns and young children live long enough to reach adolescence and adulthood is a top priority for any country. Although China's indicators in this regard show impressive progress, they conceal sharp disparities between East and West. Coastal cities often provide residents with quality neonatal care, but poor, rural, Western, and migrant populations are less fortunate, reducing their children's chances of survival. In poor areas, major causes of neonatal and early childhood death include poor obstetrical and neonatal care, neonatal tetanus, pneumonia, and diarrhoea. While not a direct cause of death, malnutrition is another underlying factor that increases the risk of severe complications for many diseases. Reported infant mortality dropped from 50 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 32 in 2000, an impressive gain. But to achieve its target for 2015 (stated in the Millennium Development Goals), China will have to reduce infant mortality still further, to 17 per 1,000 live births. Reducing early childhood mortality, especially in rural areas, is also a clear government priority. Disease control programmes targeting children—those aimed at improving immunization coverage, nutrition, obstetrical services, and neonatal care, for example—should have a strong positive influence on childhood mortality rates in the coming years. To a large extent, the burden of disease is shifting from childhood illnesses and infectious diseases to non-communicable diseases and child injury. Children living on farms and in remote areas are especially vulnerable to injury. Road accidents are another problem area. As more Chinese buy their own cars and greater industrialization puts more vehicles on the roads, deaths and injuries from auto accidents will rise. Already, about 100,000 Chinese die in traffic accidents each year.
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