The prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in the Chinese Han population: a meta-analysis

Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease(AD) in China, a meta-analysis was performed.Methods: All cross-sectional studies on the prevalence of AD conducted from 2001 to 2017 were collected and screened.A random effect model was then used to combine and analyze the data.Results: The number of studies and the population considered by the present study totaled 29 and 170,138, respectively. Of the latter, 4,452 patients were diagnosed with AD. Our findings indicated the combined prevalence of AD in China was 4% (95%CI:3%-4%), which increased with age. We further found this prevalence to be associated with sex and education: prevalences among men and women were 3% and 5%,respectively,and populations whose attained level of education was elementary school or below and junior middle school or above featured prevalences of 6% and 3%, respectively. The region with the highest prevalence of AD was East China(5%), followed by North China(4%) and Central China(3%); this value was slightly higher in rural(3%); this value was slightly higher in rural(5%) than in urban(4%) districts.conclusion: our study found the combined prevalence of AD in china to be 4%; this prevalence was closely associated with gender,age,level of education attained, and region.