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Houli Wang, MD; Tengda Xu, MD; Jin Xu, MD

JAMA. 2007;298:1928-1930.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

China, the largest developing country in the world, has experienced great economic development in recent years. Since reform and the opening-up policy were implemented in 1978, the national economy has grown at an average rate of 9.6% each year, and in 2005 China's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita reached US $1698.¹ Along with economic development have come social challenges. The gap between rich and poor has widened. In 2005, China's Gini coefficient, an indicator of income distribution difference, was estimated² at more than 0.48 (for comparison, the US Gini coefficient was 0.45 in 2004).³ Although the proportion of the population with incomes below the poverty level has decreased dramatically over the past 3 decades, about 21.5 million individuals are absolutely poor (annual income <US $85) and another 35.5 million are underprivileged (annual income US $85-$115) in China.⁴ More than half . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Author Affiliations: Department of Emergency Medicine, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, PR China.