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Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China

Both health resources and access to these resources increased after China’s health care reform launched in 2009. However, it is not clear if the inequalities were reduced within rural China, which was one of the main targets in the reform. This study aims to examine the changes in inequalities in he...

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Autores principales: Song, Suhang, Yuan, Beibei, Zhang, Luyu, Cheng, Gang, Zhu, Weiming, Hou, Zhiyuan, He, Li, Ma, Xiaochen, Meng, Qingyue
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338945/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30585243
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16010049
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author Song, Suhang
Yuan, Beibei
Zhang, Luyu
Cheng, Gang
Zhu, Weiming
Hou, Zhiyuan
He, Li
Ma, Xiaochen
Meng, Qingyue
author_facet Song, Suhang
Yuan, Beibei
Zhang, Luyu
Cheng, Gang
Zhu, Weiming
Hou, Zhiyuan
He, Li
Ma, Xiaochen
Meng, Qingyue
author_sort Song, Suhang
collection PubMed
description Both health resources and access to these resources increased after China’s health care reform launched in 2009. However, it is not clear if the inequalities were reduced within rural China, which was one of the main targets in the reform. This study aims to examine the changes in inequalities in health resources and access following the reform. Data came from the routine report of rural counties in every other year from 2008 to 2014. Health professionals and hospital beds per 1000 population were used for measuring health resources, and the hospitalization rate was used for access. Descriptive analysis and the fixed effect model were used in this study. Health resources and access increased by about 50% between 2008 and 2014 in rural China. The counties in richer quintiles got more health resources and hospitalizations. As for health professionals, the absolute differences between the richer and the poorest quintile were significantly enlarging in 2014 when compared to 2008. Regarding the hospitalization rate, the differences between the richest and the poorest quintile showed no significant change after 2012. In sum, absolute inequalities of health resources were increased, while that of health utilization kept constant following China’s health care reform. The reform needs to continually recruit qualified health workers and appropriately allocate health infrastructures to strengthen the capacity of the health care system in the impoverished areas.
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spelling pubmed-63389452019-01-23 Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China Song, Suhang Yuan, Beibei Zhang, Luyu Cheng, Gang Zhu, Weiming Hou, Zhiyuan He, Li Ma, Xiaochen Meng, Qingyue Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Both health resources and access to these resources increased after China’s health care reform launched in 2009. However, it is not clear if the inequalities were reduced within rural China, which was one of the main targets in the reform. This study aims to examine the changes in inequalities in health resources and access following the reform. Data came from the routine report of rural counties in every other year from 2008 to 2014. Health professionals and hospital beds per 1000 population were used for measuring health resources, and the hospitalization rate was used for access. Descriptive analysis and the fixed effect model were used in this study. Health resources and access increased by about 50% between 2008 and 2014 in rural China. The counties in richer quintiles got more health resources and hospitalizations. As for health professionals, the absolute differences between the richer and the poorest quintile were significantly enlarging in 2014 when compared to 2008. Regarding the hospitalization rate, the differences between the richest and the poorest quintile showed no significant change after 2012. In sum, absolute inequalities of health resources were increased, while that of health utilization kept constant following China’s health care reform. The reform needs to continually recruit qualified health workers and appropriately allocate health infrastructures to strengthen the capacity of the health care system in the impoverished areas. MDPI 2018-12-25 2019-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6338945/ /pubmed/30585243 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16010049 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Song, Suhang
Yuan, Beibei
Zhang, Luyu
Cheng, Gang
Zhu, Weiming
Hou, Zhiyuan
He, Li
Ma, Xiaochen
Meng, Qingyue
Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China
title Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China
title_full Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China
title_fullStr Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China
title_full_unstemmed Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China
title_short Increased Inequalities in Health Resource and Access to Health Care in Rural China
title_sort increased inequalities in health resource and access to health care in rural china
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338945/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30585243
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16010049
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