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Long-term care insurance and the future of healthy aging in China

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China faces urgent challenges associated with population aging. In this Comment, we summarize China’s adoption of long-term care insurance and underscore its importance for social and economic wellbeing. We provide recommendations for a future of sustainable and healthy aging in China.

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Fig. 1: Timeline of recent events relevant to LTCI in China.

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this Comment received funding from the Chinese Academy of Engineering (project 2022-XBZD-14), the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (project 2022-CFT-QT-016), Horizon Europe (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-SE-01) (project 101086139 — PoPMeD-SuSDeV), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (project INV-006261).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH), Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Simiao Chen

  2. School of Population Medicine and Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China

    Simiao Chen & Chen Wang

  3. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

    Linye Li

  4. Department of Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Lirui Jiao

  5. National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, Beijing, China

    Chen Wang

  6. Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Center of Respiratory Medicine, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China

    Chen Wang

Authors
  1. Simiao Chen
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  2. Linye Li
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  3. Lirui Jiao
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  4. Chen Wang
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Contributions

S.C. and C.W. contributed to the conceptualization of this Comment. S.C., L.L., L.J. and C.W. contributed to the writing of this Comment.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simiao Chen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Aging thanks Yanan Zhang for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Chen, S., Li, L., Jiao, L. et al. Long-term care insurance and the future of healthy aging in China. Nat Aging 3, 1465–1468 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-023-00540-9

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