OBJECTIVES: National statistics on the epidemiology and health outcomes associated with various conditions are difficult to obtain in China.  The aim of this study was to assess the evidence for validity of a patient-reported survey compared with existing epidemiological data on prominent chronic conditions.  METHODS: The data source for this comparison was the 2010 China National Health and Wellness Survey (NHWS) (N=19,954). The NHWS is a self-reported survey administered to the adult population of urban China using a mixed methodology (an Internet survey and computer assisted web interviews).  A random stratified sampling framework was implemented to ensure the final NHWS sample was identical to the demographic composition of the urban China population. Horvitz-Thompson sampling weights were applied to all analyses to project to the entire urban population. Existing epidemiological information was obtained through literature reviews.  RESULTS:  A prior systematic review of rheumatoid arthritis across China estimated the pooled prevalence across 41 studies at 0.37%. The NHWS estimated the prevalence in urban China at 2.14%. A population-based study conducted in 2001-2 using objective clinical measures (fasting blood glucose test and oral glucose tolerance test), estimated the prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) at 6.1%, with 2.1% having been diagnosed. The NHWS estimated the diagnosed prevalence of T2D at 2.95%. Other conditions were generally similar between NHWS and the literature.  CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that a self-reported patient survey can provide useful information about the urban Chinese population. The reliance on self-report underestimates conditions defined by clinical measures that the patient may not be aware of (e.g., diabetes, COPD) and may result in measurement error due to medical illiteracy (rheumatoid arthritis versus osteoarthritis) but has shown consistency with other population studies that analyzed awareness of the condition.  Further comparisons between the NHWS and other population studies are warranted.