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26 July 2007
Hong Kong
Heart disease and lung cancer are at the top of global consumers’ list of major health concerns according to a global survey conducted by The Nielsen Company.
Consumers the world over have consistently ranked health among their top three life concerns in recent years. While some diseases are more controllable, some simply beyond one’s expectation. Globally 37 percent of consumers fear of contracting to heart disease and 35 percent are extremely or very concerned about getting lung cancer, followed by much fear about Diabetes (31%) and Alzheimer’s (31%).
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There are also major differences among men and women in terms of their most feared disease.
Ailments high on women’s list are Breast Cancer (44%), Ovarian Cancer (37%) and Heart disease while among men, it is Heart disease (36%) and lung cancer (35%) are their biggest worries.
“These results confirm a phenomenon where heart disease is significantly under recognized by the world’s female population,” said Fanny Chan, Managing Director, ACNielsen, The Nielsen Company Hong Kong. “Despite major campaigns aimed at increasing awareness of heart disease among women, most still believe they are more in danger of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer. In fact, according to some medical reports one in three women worldwide die of heart disease and it is a bigger killer than all cancers combined.”
This online survey, the largest of its kind to be conducted globally on the topic of health concerns was conducted in October 2006 and polled 25,408 internet users in 46 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, North America and the Middle East
In Hong Kong, the diseases that worry people the most are Heart Disease (17%), Liver/Kidney Cancer (16%) and High Cholesterol (16%). The level of concern is however worrisomely low with the majority indicated that they were not at all concerned about the various common diseases like Lung cancer, Breast cancer, Ovarian cancer and Alzheimer’s.
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“Compared to global trends, it is surprising that Hong Kong people seem to be more relaxed about the various ailments,” observed Ms Fanny.“ Despite their ‘renowned’ hectic lifestyle, increasing stress on work and living, Hong Kong people could be under-estimating the threats of these killer diseases.”
In Asia Pacific, as in other regions of the world, heart disease, lung cancer and liver/kidney cancer are the major diseases that people dread. People in Japan have by far the biggest degree of concern for these major killers, followed by Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia.
So are consumers changing way of life to avoid illnesses?
According to the latest Nielsen Global Consumer Survey, eight in ten people worldwide have already made, or plan to make changes to their way of life to help stave off serious disease – more than a third of those surveyed globally (36%), have already made changes to their lifestyle, and a further 43 percent plan to make changes in order to try to avoid serious illnesses. The remaining one-fifth say they will not make changes to the way they live.
In line with their relatively low level of concern about the various diseases, only less than a quarter of Hong Kong people say that they have already made changes to their lifestyle to avoid health problems while over half say they plan to do so and another quarter say they do not have plans to change anything to despite their major health concerns.
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In fact, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Korea are the world’s least ready to change their lifestyle to avoid their major health concerns despite a strong intention to do something.
“The move to more healthy life-styles has taken hold in Hong Kong in recent years evidenced by the increasing consumption of nutritional supplements and Lingzhi* ,” said Chan. “While people have to take stronger ownership of their own health, more need to be done to raise the level of concern among Hong Kong people about the various health threats and motivate them to take serious actions against those health threats.”
* Remarks: According to Nielsen Market Track, the value sale growth of Lingzhi increased by more than 10 times and nutritional supplements by 67% in Hong Kong in the past 10 years.
46 Markets Covered
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Czechs Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, US and Vietnam.
About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek), trade shows and the newspaper sector (Scarborough Research). The privately held company has more than 42,000 employees and is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.
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