Dear Department of Health,

Out of concern for health problems of people in Hong Kong caused by high intake of salt, my classmate and I are doing a research based on the government programme “‘Salt/Sugar’ Label Scheme for Prepackaged Food Products” (mainly focus on salt) (relevant information that we have already found is from the website https://www.cfs.gov.hk/sc_chi/multimedia...). The aim of this programme is to reduce the amount of sugar and salt consumed by people and to reduce the prevalence of related diseases to a certain extent. Refer to the web pages and documents we found (https://www.chp.gov.hk/en/healthtopics/c... ;https://www.healthyhk.gov.hk/phisweb/en/...), the Population Health Survey 2014/2015 revealed that 27% of the population aged 15 and above has hypertension. The prevalence of hypertension increases with age, from 4.5 % for people aged 15-24 to 64.8% for people aged 65-84. Nearly three thousand people die of stroke each year in Hongkong. And in 2019, about 10.2 persons on average died from coronary heart diseases per day.

To further continue our research and give suggestions to help try to solve the problem, we are writing this letter to request for relevant data and information.

Q1:Please provide the results of the population health survey in recent years or more updated figures about NCD burden in Hong Kong including high blood pressure, stroke, coronary heart disease, which may be caused by high salt consumption.

Q2: In what ways has the Department of Health collaborated with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department in promoting the diet of less sugar and less salt?

Q3: How does the department monitor the health conditions and related diseases of HK residents in connection to sugar and salt reduction?

Yours faithfully,

ZHANG Luting