China's health literacy rate surges in 2020

BEIJING - China's health literacy rate reached 23.15 percent in 2020, up 3.98 percentage points from the previous year and marking the highest ever rate of increase, a Chinese health official said on Tuesday.

The current health literacy rate indicates 23 in 100 people have acquired healthcare knowledge and skills, Mi Feng, a spokesperson with the National Health Commission, told a press conference.

Aiming to promote people's health, China launched an action plan for the Healthy China initiative in mid-2019 with 15 special campaigns, said Mi, adding that the popularization of healthcare knowledge was the first action.

A total of 1,065 individuals were first included in a national-level expert pool for the popularization of healthcare knowledge, and provincial-level expert pools have also been established across the country over the past two years, said Mi.

He added that such actions, frequent and widespread, also played a supportive role in helping China win the battle against its COVID-19 epidemic.