Jan 24, 2021

Effectiveness of health service/investment interventions aimed at reducing inequalities in health among older people in China: a longitudinal study

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Photo by Jaddy Liu on Unsplash

This project will investigate the effects of health service/investment on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) prevention initiatives and health inequalities among elderly people in China. China has the largest ageing population in the world. NCDs are common among older people and have been found to increase the risks of health and mortality.

China has achieved nearly universal coverage of health insurance for elderly people since 2011; however, insufficient provision of health insurance and its unequal distribution according to different health insurance schemes among elderly people in China are likely to have considerable impact on the health outcomes of its fast-growing aging population. In addition, the quality and availability of health services and health investments vary greatly among provinces as a result of the provinces’ different levels of economic development. Investigating the efforts of health service/investment from the government have NCDs prevention initiatives and reduced the inequalities in health could help to understand the effectiveness of health investment in the last few years.

This project will use the micro-level (individual) from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey from 2008 to 2014 (16,840 respondents) and macro-level (province) data from the Chinese Statistics Yearbook. During these 6 years, the Chinese government has achieved universal coverage of health insurance as well as growth in the investment of health services. Multilevel models will be used to investigate the effects of health service/investment (macro-level) on health inequalities among elderly people (individual level) in China spatially and temporally.

We expect to submit two academic publications. These papers will have the results and the discussions of current health policy. The discussions will feed into policy implications for future health care reform under the National Strategy “Healthy China 2030”, launched by the Chinese State Council in October 2016.

Outcomes

2019

Academic Publications

  • Feng, Z., Jones, K., & Phillips D.R. (2019). Social exclusion, self-rated health and depression among older people in China: evidence from a national survey of older persons. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 82, 238-244.
  • Lei, P.,Feng, Z.,Ding, J., Duan, R., Yu, H., & Liu, Q. (2019). Evaluation of the status of medical resource allocation and service utilization in China. Health Economics Research,36(5), 50-55. (In Mandarin)

2018

Academic Publications

  • Feng, Phillips and Jones have published a paper named “A geographical multivariable multilevel analysis of social exclusion among older people in China: Evidence from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey ageing study”.
  • Lei, Feng, Ding, Jing & et al  have a paper titled “Evaluation of the current allocation of healthcare resources and service utilization in China” which is accepted to publish in Health Economics Research (in Chinese).

Scholarly events

  • 4-6 July 2018, Feng presented “Can state health investment prevent chronic diseases among older people in China?” at the British Society of Gerontology annual conference in Manchester, UK
  • 29 -30 October 2018, the workshop “Health Service, Investment and Health Equality in China” was held at Zhejiang University, China.
  • 14-18 November 2018. Feng presented a poster “The Effectiveness of Health Investment on Non-Communicable Diseases Among Older People in China: A Multilevel Study” at the Gerontological Society of America annual conference in Boston, US.

Who's involved

Professor GUO Naijia, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Dr Doreen Au, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Dr Wenjuab Zhang, Renmin University

Dr Kai Lui, Renmin University

Professor David Phillips, Lingnan University

Wenjiong He, Zhejiang University

Hong Mi, Zhejiang University

Jin Feng, Fudan University

Minglai Zhu, Nankai University

Hai Gu, Nanjing University

Shaoguo Zhai, Northwest University

Vivian Lou, University of Hong Kong

Yuehua Zhang, Zhejiang University

Zhixin Feng, University of Southampton

Huijun Liu, Xi’an Jiaotong University

Chen Bai, Renmin University

Yinan Yang, South China University of Technology

Feng Huang, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Chaoqun Wang, Central China Normal University

Yi Zeng Zhongnan, University of Economics and Law

Peng Lei, The First People’s Hospital of Jingmen, Hubei

Yixin Yang, Zhejiang University

Xinjie Zhang, Jiangsu University

Minjie Tian, WUN Office Coordinator, Zhejiang University

Xiaoyi Hu, Zhejiang University

Paicheng Liu, Sun Yat-sen University

Zhen Wang, Fudan University

Xing Ren, Northwest University

Lu Li, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Yaling Du, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Siyu Tao, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Jiangyun Chen, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Mingming Xie, Zhengzhou University

Yue Liu, Zhejiang University

Guolong Wang, Zhejiang University

Lingxue Sun, Zhejiang University

Xinhao Lin, Zhejiang University

Associate Professor  Xiaoting Liu, Zhejiang University