Scientists with Fudan University are teaming up with a pharmaceutical company in neighboring Jiangsu Province to establish a residents' health database, which is expected to ease prevention and treatment of common diseases.

Conducted by the Taizhou Fudan Health Sciences Research Institute, the database program will track health conditions of about 30,000 residents in Taizhou, Jiangsu, for at least the next two decades.

Researchers will record common diseases such as cardiovascular problems, diabetes, cancer and mental illness, and try to analyze the relationship between the diseases and people's daily lifestyle.

Genetic analysis and family health history will also be taken in the hope of unveiling how diseases develop, Fudan professors said.

"The biggest goal of the unprecedented project is to set up a national-level and open disease information database that could be shared and used by all domestic research institutes and hospitals," said Lu Daru, professor with Fudan's School of Life Sciences.

Setting up a national health database containing systematic information on diseases is a common practice in many Western countries.

By studying the cause and spread of diseases, doctors can work out how to prevent or treat conditions more effectively.

In China, however, only individual research groups compile databases on specific diseases.

Lu explained that fast-paced modern life had changed people's lives, which meant there was an urgent need for a health database.

(Shanghai Daily November 21, 2007)