The city of Guangzhou, a major metropolitan hub in Southern China’s Guangdong province, has unveiled an ambitious public health initiative to conduct universal cognitive screening for all residents of elderly care facilities. This program represents a significant escalation of the city’s ongoing efforts to combat dementia through early detection and intervention.
According to disclosures from the Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission, this systematic screening operation will be implemented across all senior care institutions throughout the city by the conclusion of 2027. The initiative emerges in response to policy recommendations advanced during Guangzhou’s January 2025 political consultative sessions.
The driving force behind these proposals was Ouyang Zhihong, a standing committee member of the Guangzhou Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference who concurrently serves as executive president of the Guangdong Home-Care Services Association. Ouyang presented a comprehensive framework emphasizing the critical importance of community-based screening mechanisms combined with professional clinical assessment to identify early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and high-risk individuals.
Central to Guangzhou’s dementia prevention strategy is the innovative ‘Hui Ji Yi’ (Wisdom Memory) digital platform—a smart screening mini-program integrated into the municipal government’s digital infrastructure. This technological solution has already facilitated approximately 400,000 preliminary cognitive assessments since its implementation in April 2024, resulting in the identification of 23,000 positive cases that subsequently received early intervention.
The city’s approach establishes a multi-tiered medical consortium that creates a seamless continuum of care from hospital diagnosis to community and family-based support. Personalized intervention protocols are being developed to address the full spectrum of cognitive conditions, ranging from subjective cognitive decline to mild impairment and advanced dementia.
At the community level, Guangzhou has embedded dementia prevention within its national basic public health services framework, leveraging family physician teams to maintain ongoing monitoring and support. Through a coordinated alliance of medical institutions, the city has established a district-wide responsibility system encompassing all eleven administrative regions of Guangzhou.
The ultimate objective of these concerted efforts is to achieve dementia prevention awareness among no less than 80% of the city’s elderly population, representing a substantial public health advancement in addressing the challenges associated with aging and cognitive disorders.