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<< Towards 2025: Strategy and Action Plan to Prevent and Control Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) in Hong Kong >>

Community Engagement Funding Scheme

Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes have been identified as the four major NCDs by the World Health Organisation. According to statistics taken in 2016, more than 50% of deaths in Hong Kong were caused by these four types of NCDs. To this end, the Government was committed to curbing the spread of NCDs in Hong Kong to alleviate the medical, social and economic burden.

The Community Engagement Funding Scheme provides financial supports within districts in the form of grants to enable district organisations to organise projects on the promotion of community health and thus help to prevent and control NCDs.

Establishing a healthy lifestyle

The Government encourages the public to establish a healthy lifestyle, which included the healthy diet habits of less sugar, less salt and more fruits and vegetables, regular physical activity, and staying away from tobacco and alcohol, so as to effectively eliminate the main causes and potential risk factors of NCDs. The Strategy and Action Plan, which was enacted in 2018, aimed to achieve 9 targets locally by 2025 to prevent and control NCDs and improve the health of the Hong Kong people.

Target 1	Reduce premature mortality from NCD
Target 2	Reduce harmful use of alcohol
Target 3	Reduce physical inactivity
Target 4	Reduce salt intake
Target 5	Reduce tobacco use
Target 6	Contain the prevalence of raised blood pressure
Target 7	Halt the risk in diabetes and obesity
Target 8	Prevent heart attacks and strokes through drug therapy and counselling
Target 9	Improve availability of affordable basic technologies and essential medicines to treat major NCD

Exercise frequently to reduce physical inactivity

In order to reduce the prevalence of adolescents and adults with insufficient physical activity by 10% by 2025, the Plan encourages the public to frequently engage in a lot of high-intensity physical activities from childhood to adulthood. This would strengthen their cardiorespiratory fitness, increase muscular strength and reduce body fatness, thereby reducing the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, promoting bone health and reducing the symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression. Therefore, educating the public to establish regular exercise habits is essential to reducing the incidence of NCDs.

Sport for all: cultivating exercise habits regardless of age

To achieve the goal, the Plan will focus on the publicity and education of interventions, and improvement of the environment to encourage the public to integrate physical activity into their lives. At present, the Government has implemented various initiatives and policies, such as the promotional activities of schools and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department’s Sport for All Day and The Hong Kong Games, to actively promote public participation in sports activities. In addition, in order to expedite the achievement of the targets, we encourage all persons who have without any physical health or physical activity restrictions to refer to the advice and sports recommendations for three age groups on the right page and start playing their own favourite sport.

With regard to children and youths, their parents can arrange them to participate in sports activities in their spare time according to their physical fitness, personality and hobbies to help them develop a habit of constant exercise from an early age, and encourage them to play team sports such as basketball, handball, football and baseball, to improve their social skills at the same time.

Age group	Children and youths (5 to 17)	Adult (18 to 64)	Elder (65 or higher)
Intensity of physical activity	Moderate to intense	Moderate	Moderate to low
Total exercise time	At least 60 minutes a day	At least 150 minutes a week	At least 150 minutes a week
Recommended sports	Tennis, handball, badminton, rugby, lifesaving, basketball, football, cycling, taekwondo, etc.	Jogging, table tennis, boxing, rowing, fencing, archery, judo, tennis, running, etc.	Gateball, law bowls, hiking, social dance, etc.

Working adults can also participate in different sports during their spare time. Tennis, running or a more relaxing sports dance are all excellent sports for fitness and reducing stress. In families, whether you play hide and seek with their children or dogs, do housework or do gardening, these are all suitable physical activities.

Moderate exercise helps elderlies by strengthening their muscle, maintaining body coordination, reducing the load on their bones, and increasing balance to prevent falls. There are many types of sports that elderlies can participate in, but these should be selected according to their physical condition. For example, lawn bowl and gateball are both sports that train the movement of hands and feet and improve thinking ability.

The LCSD’s Community Sports Club Project

The LCSD has always been committed to promoting sports and a healthy lifestyle in Hong Kong. The Community Sports Club Project allows members of the public to easily participate in various sports in the communities where they live, and even gives them exposure to some more uncommonly seen sports such as finswimming, fencing and rowing, etc. The sports covered under the Project are all interesting and have varying levels of effect on health. The various community sports clubs set up under the Project also provide more sports activities and courses to the public directly to promote sports at the community level and educate the public on the health benefits of regular exercise.

Website of the Department of Health: