[Photo provided to China Daily]

The China Association of Health Promotion and Education has launched a charity project to raise the public's awareness on the threat of precocious puberty, a health condition that causes early sexual development in children.

A child whose body begins puberty and starts changing into that of an adult too young — usually before 8 in girls and before 9 in boys — are considered having precocious puberty, and the experiences often have negative impact on the child's adult height potential and psychological health.

Still unknown to the medical community of its causes in many cases, the condition is a common endocrine disorder among children, and is having an increasing incidence rate in China, according to the association.

Nationally, the prevalence of the disorder is 0.43 percent, but is higher in developed areas. In big cities such as Shanghai, the disorder prevalence is about 1 percent.

However, Chinese society is not fully aware of the disorder, and only one third of the patients ever seek medical advice, according to the association.

The charity project plans to select 20 hospitals and 20 schools nationwide as education bases, where medical experts and volunteers will organize education programs for the public to know more about the disease.