Objective  To systematically analyse the data of high-quality epidemiological surveys on senile dementia conducted both at home and abroad and related healthcare registries, so as to provide some ideas and suggestions for the future development of dementia surveillance and research in China.

  Methods  The literatures on epidemiological studies about dementia published between 1990 and 2020 were retrieved. Finally, 20 epidemiological surveys and 5 healthcare registries were included. The basic information, performance and main results of the surveys were analyzed and compared.

  Results  Cross-sectional surveys on dementia in China characterized by large sample size and good national representativeness. However, attention should be paid to the recent decline in response rate and prolonged survey time. Longitudinal surveys of dementia started late in China, so its performance, including data development and publishing, needs to be improved. In the future development of dementia surveillance, close attention should be paid to the expansion of surveillance function, integrations of survey data with demographic/health services registries and advanced analysis techniques in international longitudinal surveys. Meanwhile, the chronic disease surveillance system is a vital resource and foundation for developing the dementia surveillance system in China.

  Conclusion  Dementia surveillance has made some progress in China, and governmental departments and researchers are making positive attempts. While learning from international experience, we should simultaneously strengthen the data integration and sharing and construct a multidisciplinary research collaboration network.