Major diseases refer to the illnesses that severely endanger public health and life safety of the people, severely affect the national economy and the development of society, and severely impair national security and our international image. Based on the characteristics of the present stage, five categories of 18 major diseases are selected as the representatives of major diseases, i.e. infectious diseases (AIDS, TB, hepatitis B, schistosomiasis, malaria, plague, cholera, echinococcosis, brucellosis), chronic diseases (hypertension, cerebral apoplexy, diabetes, lung cancer, liver cancer), mental diseases (severe psychonosema), occupational disease (pneumoconiosis) and endemic diseases (iodine deficiency disorders, Kaschin-Beck disease).

Our society is in the process of modernization. With economic development, social progress and rapid improvement of people’s living standards, industrialization, urbanization, informatization and internationalization are gradually increasing. Aging problems are getting worse. Health and well-being in the national economic and social development are great challenges and opportunities. After nearly 30 years of rapid development, China has made remarkable achievements in healthcare. However, it still cannot meet the growing health needs of the people and faces many difficulties and challenges. The main problems lie in the following aspects: The first is to accelerate the transformation of the health mode. The second is the deterioration of the ecological environment has become an important factor that threatens the health of our people. The third is that there is fragmentation of preventive care strategies and preventable risk factors are not effectively controlled. The fourth is that there is inadequate provision of health services and the development of healthcare lags behind economic development and cannot meet national needs.

As China’s economy goes into the new normal, hard constraints such as resources, environment and climate variation will slow it down. However, the great potential for economic development and the inertia for economic growth will still keep China’s economy growing at a medium-to-high speed. It is predicted that China’s GDP will maintain a growth rate of 6.5–7% in 2016–2020 and a medium-high rate of growth in 2020–2030 (see Fig. 2.1).

With rapidly increased number of medical institutions and ward beds as well as expanded scale of medical institutions, great achievements have been made in the medical and health service systems during the 12th 5-Year Plan period. While strengthening the construction of the medical insurance system, government has also continuously enhanced the construction of the public medical care delivery systems by various means, both providing support to medical care delivery systems and satisfying people’s needs, which created a favorable funding environment for the development of the health system. The increased medical professionals were 960,000 during the period between 2007 and 2010, with an average annual growth of 240,000, and 1673,600 during the period between 2010 and 2015, with an average annual growth of 334,700. Public funding also soared to a greater height during the same period. Government payment as a share of total health increased by 129 billion yuan from 2004 to 2007, 315 billion yuan from 2007 to 2010 and 674.28 billion yuan from 2010 to 2015. The increased percentage was from 22.3% in 2007, to 28.7% in 2010 and 30.4% in 2015.

During the 12th 5-Year Plan Period, the State Council issued National Fitness Program (2011–2015) and the local governments above county level also issued Implementation Program for National Fitness. With the implementation of these programs, the national fitness campaign was widely carried out and people’s physical fitness and health kept on improving, which were mainly revealed in the following aspects: