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Ng Kang-chung

More than a quarter of Hongkongers have chronic health problems, although most people believe themselves to be in "good" or "excellent" health, a Census and Statistics Department report has revealed.
According to the report released yesterday, the three most common chronic illnesses are hypertension, diabetes mellitus and high cholesterol.
Findings also showed that 11.2 per cent of those aged over 14 smoke cigarettes.
The figures are based on a household survey which collected information on health-related topics from members of about 10,100 families interviewed between October 2011 and January last year.
About 1.9 million people in Hong Kong had chronic health problems, representing about 28.1 per cent of the population, the report revealed.
And the older one gets, the higher the chance of suffering from a chronic disease.
Some 73.7 per cent of those aged over 64 suffered from chronic health problems, compared to 27.6 per cent for those aged between 45 and 54, and 45.7 per cent for those aged 55 to 64.
Those surveyed were also asked to rate their health.
Some 38.2 per cent of those polled rated their health as "fair" or "poor", while 52.9 per cent rated it as "good" and 8.9 per cent said their health was "excellent" or "very good".
When asked to compare their health to that of a year ago, 11.5 per cent of the respondents said their health had taken a turn for the worse, 82.9 per cent said their health was "more or less the same", while 5.5 per cent said their health had improved.
Some 21.5 per cent said they had seen a doctor within a month before the survey. Roughly half did not have any medical insurance. The median charge each time for seeing a private doctor was HK$200.
The department report also found that that some 1.91 million - or about 80.3 per cent of all families in Hong Kong - own personal computers, and almost 98 per cent of these families have their computers connected to the internet.


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