An economy-related equity analysis of health service utilization by women in economically underdeveloped regions of western China

Abstract

BackgroundThe Chinese government has long been committed to eliminating the inequality in the utilization of health services; however, it still lacks an analysis or measurement of the economy-related inequality in the utilization of women’s health services.MethodsThe economy-related utilization of health services in women aged 15 years and above was assessed by the horizontal inequity index of a two-week outpatient rate and annual inpatient rate from the 5th National Health Service Survey of Shaanxi Province. The concentration index of each factor was decomposed into the contribution of each factor to the economic-related inequality of health service utilization based on the Probit regression model.ResultsThe horizontal inequity indexes of the two-week outpatient rate was 0.0493, and the horizontal inequity indexes of the annual impatient rate was 0.0869. The contributions of economic status to the two indexes were 190.71% and 115.80%, respectively. Economic status, age, basic medical insurance, educational status, marital status, urban/rural area, and self-rated health were the main impact factors that affected the inequality in women’s health services utilization in Shaanxi.ConclusionsHealth service utilization was different between women with different social demographic characteristics, and unequal health service utilization is evident among women in Shaanxi.

Study on the Utilization of Inpatient Services for Middle-Aged and Elderly Rural Females in Less Developed Regions of China

“…Present studies have shown that household income is beneficial to the use of inpatients in the rich, which is the dominant determinant of inequality in the utilization of inpatient services since more wealthy individuals are able to pay for and utilize more inpatient services [37][38][39]. But some studies have shown that the differences of health service utilization between income groups were not significant [40].…”

Regional economic development, household income, gender and hypertension: evidence from half a million Chinese

“…We speculate that social factors may also be related to this finding. As income increases, females tend to be more attentive than males to personal health management [38,43], make better use of health facilities and adopt healithier lifestyles [44] which all may lower hypertension risks. Due to the perception of beauty, affluent Chinese women are more attentive to appearance and value slenderness [45], thus more aware of a healthy diet and engage in more physical activity.…”

Trend of disparity between coastland and inland in medical expenditure burden for rural inpatients with malignant tumor in southeast of China from 2007 to 2016

“…To some extent, the inconformity indirectly reflected that the prevalence rate of malignant tumor continuously increased. With the development of economy, the per capita disposable income and health awareness of residents increased so that the residents would go to hospital when they were ill [19,20]. In addition, the unceasing improvement of NRCMS promoted the participation rate increasing which also resulted in the rise of hospital admissions [21,22].…”