The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence and
epidemiology in 1994 of hip fracture in Shenyang, a large city
in the northeast of The People’s Republic of China, using
register information and medical records collected from the
36 hospitals in Shenyang. The hip fracture data were restricted
to cervical or trochanteric types. A subset (59% of
total) of medical records of hip fracture was used to investigate
the causes of hip fracture. The causes were classified as
simple fall, fall from a bicycle during cycling, bicycle accident,
car accident, and fall from a height. There was a total
of 453 hip fractures (206 in women and 247 in men) in the
population over 50 years of age. The age-adjusted 1 year
cumulative incidence rate was 67/100,000 (95% confidence
interval [CI] 5 58–76/100,000) for women and 81/100,000
(95% CI 5 71–91/100,000) for men. The standardized incidence
rate against the 1985 U.S. population was 87/100,000
(95% CI 5 77–97/100,000) for women and 100/100,000 (95%
CI 5 89–111/100,000) for men. The mean (6 standard
deviation) age of patients with a hip fracture was 67.5 6 9.8
years for men and 66.9 6 9.0 years for women. The overall
male-to-female ratio of hip fracture was 1.21:1 for ageadjusted
hip fracture incidence and 1.15:1 for standardized
incidence. Simple fall accounted for 70% hip fractures in
women but caused only 49% in men (x2 5 11.2, degrees of
freedom [df] 5 1, p 5 0.0008). The frequency of hip fractures
caused by a fall from a bicycle was higher in men (28%) than
women (10%) (x2 5 13.0, df 5 1, p 5 0.0003). The results of
this study indicate (1) a low incidence of hip fracture in a
Chinese population compared with more affluent countries,
and (b) a higher incidence in men than women that is related
in part to a higher incidence of accidents, especially bicyclerelated
ones.