Health state preference is significantly affected by factors beyond demographics. These factors should be considered in achieving a representative sample in valuation studies in China.

Objective Satisfaction with healthcare may be captured by surveys of patients and staff, or in extreme cases, the number and severity of medical disputes. This study tries to investigate the relationship between satisfaction and hospital management as well as the role of good management in preventing medical disputes ex ante. Method We investigate this relationship using information on management practices collected from 510 hospitals in mainland China using the World Management Survey questionnaire and combined with medical malpractice litigation data and patient/staff satisfaction surveys. Multiple regression models were used to analyse the relationship between hospital management scores and medical litigation outcomes as well as patient and staff satisfaction during 2014–2016. Results An increase of one standard deviation in the management score was related to 13.1% (p < 0.10) lower incidence of medical disputes, 12.4% (p < 0.05) fewer medical litigations, and 51.3% (p < 0.10) less compensation. Better management quality of hospitals was associated with higher inpatient satisfaction (p < 0.05) and staff well‐being (p < 0.01). Conclusion Improving hospital management could reduce hospital costs generated by lawsuits, reduce potential harm to patients, and improve patient and staff satisfaction, thus leading to a better patient‐physician relationship.

The occurrence of future unrelated medical costs is a direct consequence of life-prolonging interventions, but most pharmacoeconomic guidelines recommend the exclusion of these costs. The Chinese guidelines were updated in 2020, taking an exclusion approach for the future unrelated medical cost. We notice the research surrounding this issue continues in other countries and leads to an inclusion recommendation in some guidelines. Meanwhile, this issue has not been discussed in China, reflecting an urgent need for extensive research on its impact. We reviewed the theoretical and practical studies surrounding the inclusion of future unrelated medical costs, summarised the landscape of guidelines in other jurisdictions. We found that the inclusion would increase the internal and external consistency of economic evaluation and the comparability of results between different jurisdictions. However, more research is needed surrounding this issue. We proposed a future research agenda to inform the update of Chinese guidelines. We recommend research on individual-level healthcare reimbursement data and end-of-life costs from hospital administrative data to generate the age-specific, sex-specific and condition-specific costs. We also recommend establishing a formal process to evaluate the ethical and economic impact of including future unrelated medical costs and adjust the threshold accordingly in the guidelines.

IntroductionCancer is a leading cause of death in China. Rural-to-urban migrants are a group of over 260 million people in China sometimes termed the ‘floating’ population. This study assessed the prevalence of cancer diagnosis and access to needed healthcare by residence and migration status in China.MethodsWe used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey, a nationally representative population-based random sample of adults age 45 years and older and their spouses in China. We used multivariable logistic regressions to compare outcomes among rural-to-urban migrants, local urban residents and local rural residents after adjusting for province of residence, socioeconomic status and demographic characteristics.ResultsThe sample included 7335 urban residents, 9286 rural residents and 3255 rural-to-urban migrants. Prevalence of cancer diagnosis was 9.9 per 1000 population among rural-to-urban migrants (95% CI 6.5 to 15.1 per 1000 population). Rural-to-urban migrants had higher tobacco use (OR=2.01; 95% CI 1.59 to 2.56, p<0.001), lower use of a health check-up (OR=0.57; 95% CI 0.48 to 0.67, p<0.001) and lower prevalence of diagnosed cancer (OR=0.41; 95% CI 0.18 to 0.95, p=0.037) than urban residents. Among participants with diagnosed cancer, residence and migration status were not predictive of foregoing needed healthcare, but were predictive of diagnosis with a screen-detectable tumour (ie, breast, colon, prostate or cervical cancer) (OR=0.17; 95% CI 0.05 to 0.63, p=0.007 for rural residents; OR=0.34; 95% CI 0.09 to 1.22, p=0.098 for rural-to-urban migrants, compared with urban residents).ConclusionRapid and large migration is still a driving force transitioning China. Due to some remaining dual policy settings in favour of local residents, rural migrants tend to use lower primary care and preventive health check-ups in general, and diagnosis of screen-detectable tumours in particular, leading to potentially higher risk of missing early diagnosis of cancers. Closing gaps in diagnosis of screen-detectable tumours could increase treatment and improve cancer outcomes.

This study examines whether implementing Urban Residents Medical Insurance Scheme decreased an individual's risky lifestyle behavior before illness, termed ex‐ante moral hazard. Ex‐ante moral hazard is predicted by the classical economic theory suggesting that health insurance coverage reduces an individual's incentive to take preventive efforts to remain healthy. Studies have provided mixed evidence for this prediction. China's 2006 nationwide social experiment of implementing the Urban Residents Basic Medical Insurance Scheme offers an excellent opportunity for examining the effect of the transition from uninsured to insured on an individual's health behaviors. We exploit the longitudinal dimension of a representative survey data for 2007–2010 and employ the instrumental variable technique, thereby addressing the issue of self‐selection into voluntary health insurance schemes. The results do not provide evidence for and contrast the prediction of the ex‐ante moral hazard. Significant differences exist between insured and uninsured groups with respect to smoking, drinking habits, and being overweight. People with insurance care more about their health than people without insurance do. The main results still hold if we use alternative estimation methods and other robustness tests.