By collecting the panel data of 29 regions in China from 2008 to 2017, this study used the spatial Durbin model (SDM) to explore the spatial effect of PM2.5 exposure on the health burden of residents. The most obvious findings to emerge from this study are that: health burden and PM2.5 exposure are not randomly distributed over different regions in China, but have obvious spatial correlation and spatial clustering characteristics. The maximum PM2.5 concentrations have a significant positive effect on outpatient expense and outpatient visits of residents in the current period, and the impact of PM2.5 pollution has a significant temporal lag effect on residents’ health burden. PM2.5 exposure has a spatial spillover effect on the health burden of residents, and the PM2.5 concentrations in the surrounding regions or geographically close regions have a positive influence on the health burden in the particular region. The impact of PM2.5 exposure is divided into the direct effect and the indirect effect (the spatial spillover effect), and the spatial spillover effect is greater than that of the direct effect. Therefore, we conclude that PM2.5 exposure has a spatial spillover effect and temporal lag effect on the health burden of residents, and strict regulatory policies are needed to mitigate the health burden caused by air pollution.

Using the panel data of 31 regions in China from 2002 to 2018, this study aims to investigate the effect of business cycles on health expenditure from the role of income inequality. We find that health expenditure experiences a change from pro-cyclical to counter-cyclical with business cycles. Specifically, business cycles have a different influence on health expenditure before and after the financial crisis in 2008. Our findings also show that income inequality can moderate the impact of business cycles on health expenditure in China. More importantly, the role of income inequality in the above issue varies from different regions. We conclude that the government should try to take active steps to control health expenditure by decreasing income inequality.

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Basic medical insurance is the critical medical security system to realize common prosperity in China. This study explores the impact of basic medical insurance on elderly family income inequality in China using the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data in 2018. Our finding shows that basic medical insurance is significantly negatively correlated with elderly family income inequality, indicating basic medical insurance has a positive impact on narrowing the elderly family income inequality. The heterogeneity analysis shows that basic medical insurance has a more significant reduction effect among the eastern elderly and the younger elderly family. The results also suggest that health performance significantly mediates the relationship between basic medical insurance and elderly family income inequality. This study implies that the Chinese government should increase the proportion of basic medical insurance reimbursement and expand the scope of reimbursement for basic medical insurance to realize income fairness among elderly families.