TY - JOUR
T1 - Private Healthcare Expenditure in China
T2 - A Regional Comparative Analysis
AU - Yang, Shangguang
AU - Wang, Danyang
AU - Xu, Lu
AU - Wang, Chunlan
AU - Yang, Xi
AU - Lo, Kevin
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This work was supported by the General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number: 71874054]; Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission [grant number: 2017-01-07-00-02-E00008]; Key Project of Shanghai Soft Science Foundation [grant number: 19692109100].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/10/14
Y1 - 2021/10/14
N2 - Private (out-of-pocket) healthcare expenditure (PHCE) is a complex phenomenon that is shaped by many different factors. In this paper, we analyzed the influencing factors of PHCE in China, with a specific focus on regional differences. We found that old-age dependency ratio, income, and education have significant impacts on PHCE in all regions, whereas public HCE, number of beds in medical institutions, and economic development levels have significant impacts only in some regions. The results indicate that the government should pay attention to regional inequality and implement targeted adjustments for improving the health service system. In particular, we recommend: (1) monitoring regional inequality in PHCE and other healthcare issues to unmask geo-graphical differences in healthcare interventions; (2) adopting regional-specific policy measures—the government should divert some resources from eastern to western and central regions to increasing the support for public health undertakings and improve the quality of the local health services while providing matching medical resources by targeting the needs of the residents; (3) paying more attention to the healthcare demand of the elderly population; and (4) improving the education level of residents to improve public health and avoid high PHCE.
AB - Private (out-of-pocket) healthcare expenditure (PHCE) is a complex phenomenon that is shaped by many different factors. In this paper, we analyzed the influencing factors of PHCE in China, with a specific focus on regional differences. We found that old-age dependency ratio, income, and education have significant impacts on PHCE in all regions, whereas public HCE, number of beds in medical institutions, and economic development levels have significant impacts only in some regions. The results indicate that the government should pay attention to regional inequality and implement targeted adjustments for improving the health service system. In particular, we recommend: (1) monitoring regional inequality in PHCE and other healthcare issues to unmask geo-graphical differences in healthcare interventions; (2) adopting regional-specific policy measures—the government should divert some resources from eastern to western and central regions to increasing the support for public health undertakings and improve the quality of the local health services while providing matching medical resources by targeting the needs of the residents; (3) paying more attention to the healthcare demand of the elderly population; and (4) improving the education level of residents to improve public health and avoid high PHCE.
KW - China
KW - Influencing factors
KW - Private healthcare expenditures
KW - Regional differences
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85117358054&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/healthcare9101374
DO - 10.3390/healthcare9101374
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85117358054
SN - 2227-9032
VL - 9
JO - Healthcare (Switzerland)
JF - Healthcare (Switzerland)
IS - 10
M1 - 1374
ER -
