The prevention of sudden death has been an unsolved problem in modern medicine.This paper summarizes the concept

morbidity characteristics

pathologic mechanism

main causes and progress in prevention of sudden death based on literature review of researches relating to sudden death in recent thirty years.Sudden death is characterized by abrupt occurrence

early morbidity age

and the incidence for the males were higher than females and it mostly occurs outside hospital and many happen at night;the main cause of sudden death in infants is respiratory infection and that in the young is myocardial disease

and the main cause of sudden death in the middle-aged and elderly is coronary disease and cerebrovascular disease.Preventive measures should be taken positively to control risk factors for coronary disease and avoid inducement of sudden death

keep high vigilance against precursor of sudden death and immediately deal with premonitory symptoms of sudden death.The five survival chain modes are inducted in combination with the characteristic that sudden death mostly occurs in grass-roots communities.It emphasizes on improving the quality of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and racing against time to prevent sudden death so as to lower the fatality rate of patients in the face of sudden death

especially high risk patients in the face of sudden cardiac death（SCD）.