title: A systematic review of the prevalence of nutrition labels and completeness of nutrient declarations on pre-packaged foods in China.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Chinese government launched a voluntary nutrition labelling code in 2007 and made it mandatory since 1 January 2013. This article aims to quantify the prevalence of nutrition labels and the completeness of nutrient declarations on pre-packaged foods in China and to explore the impact of the 2007 code.
  
  
  METHODS
  A systematic search of the published and grey literature was done, and a random-effects meta-analysis was used to obtain summary estimates.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 15 surveys identified from 13 reports. For 44% (95% confidence interval: 37-51%) of the 22 636 food items, the product label provided information on one or more nutrients. There was significant heterogeneity between the surveys (I(2) = 99%, P < 0.001) raising some uncertainty about the reliability of the estimate. The heterogeneity was in part explained by differences in labelling between food categories (P < 0.001) but not by changes in the prevalence of nutrition labels over time (P = 0.36).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Most pre-packaged foods in this survey had a nutrition label non-compliant with current Chinese nutrition labelling standards. The voluntary code launched in 2007 had limited impact on nutrition labelling. There is significant scope for the recently introduced mandatory labelling requirements to improve nutrition labelling in China.
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Road Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Road Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Road Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Barzi
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Nutrition and Food Safety, China CDC, No 155, Changbai Road, Changping District, Beijing 102206, China.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Road Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Trevena
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Road Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dunford
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Road Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia.
authors.forename: M-A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Land
authors.affiliation: The George Institute for Global Health, The University of Sydney, PO Box M201, Missenden Road Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales 2050, Australia.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Neal
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D005515:Food Labeling / Q000592:standards*; D018857:Food Packaging; D006801:Humans; D018673:Nutrition Policy
keywords: China; nutrition labelling; pre-packaged foods