Program aims to popularize awareness of disability prevention countrywide

China has channeled continuous efforts to prevent disability by improving people's literacy about how to prevent it, controlling birth defects and disability caused by diseases or injuries.

The nation will mark the ninth national disability prevention day on Monday. Eleven central departments, including the China Disabled Persons' Federation, Office of Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and the Ministry of Education, have recently jointly launched a program to better popularize knowledge on disability prevention, with a focus on those caused by injuries.

Under the program, the authorities will intensify promotion of laws and regulations on safety production, traffic security and occupational diseases prevention on Monday, to increase employers and individuals' awareness of personal security and health.

Information on harmfulness of disability caused by traffic accidents, work-related injuries, or tripping and falling will be popularized on Monday, as also skills in avoiding disasters and handling emergencies, all with an aim to improve people's self-protection ability, according to the program.

In 2021, China released a five-year action plan on disability prevention, which has so far attained some progressive results in birth defects control, disease or injury-caused disability control and rehabilitation services, according to a release by the China Disabled Persons' Federation on Thursday.

The release said the rate of premarital health checks has reached over 75 percent nationwide till date, while the rates of preconception health examinations and prenatal screenings have exceeded 90 percent.

The nation has also achieved progress in controlling disability caused by diseases since 2021. According to the federation, over 60 percent of patients having chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes have received standard services from grassroots communities, and 95 percent of registered patients with severe mental illness are under standard management.

The federation said that the nation has also taken effective measures to promote rehabilitation services under the disability prevention action plan in recent years, with about 499,000 disabled children getting rehabilitation assistance and 8.67 million disabled people receiving basic rehabilitation services so far.