Experts call for healthy aging at seminar

China needs to boost its health industry to prepare for an accelerating aging society, experts said at a seminar held by Pan'gu Think Tank in Beijing on Wednesday.

There is about a 7-year gap between the life expectancy of Chinese and that of a healthy state, said Chen Qiulin, deputy director of the Health Industry Development Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"A real longevity should be a healthy longevity," he said, adding despite the remarkable decline in the mortality rate of the elderly largely due to higher-quality health care services, many old patients end up in a hospital bed in their last few years.

Thus, in addition to further development of State-owned hospitals and private clinics to provide patients with better treatment and save their lives, it is necessary to provide more preventive healthcare before people get sick and go to hospital, Chen said.

To encourage healthy aging, it is more urgent to change people's perceptions of early investment in healthcare, especially for elderly people, experts said.