TY - JOUR
T1 - Illness and medical and other expenditures
T2 - Observations from western and eastern China
AU - Zhang, Jing
AU - Shia, Benchang
AU - Yi, Huangdi
AU - Ma, Shuangge
AU - Ma, Chi
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the editor and three reviewers for their careful review and insightful comments, which led to a significant improvement of the manuscript, and all survey staff and participants for their contributions. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article: National Natural Science Foundation of China (71201139, 71301162), National Social Science Foundation of China (13CTJ001, 13&ZD148), Bureau of Statistics of China (2011LD002), Humanity and Social Science Youth Research Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (12YJC790263), National Natural Science Foundation of China-Youth Research Foundation (71303200), and Yale MacMillan Center Faculty Research Grant. The funders have no role in study design, data analysis, manuscript preparation, and decision to submit.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Zhang et al.; licensee BioMed Central.
PY - 2015/2/20
Y1 - 2015/2/20
N2 - Background: Illness and the medical expenditure that follows have a profound impact on the well-being of individuals and households. China is a huge country with significant regional differences. The goal of this study is to investigate the associations of illness and medical expenditure with other categories of household expenditures, with special attention paid to the differences in observations between the western and eastern regions. Methods: A survey was conducted in six major cities in China, three in the east and three in the west, in 2011. Data on demographics, illness conditions, and medical and other expenditures were collected from 12,515 households. Results: In the analysis of the associations of illness conditions and medical expenditure with demographics, multiple significant associations were observed, and there are differences between the eastern and western regions. In univariate analyses, illness conditions and medical expenditure were found as having significant associations with other categories of expenditures. In multivariate analyses adjusting for household and household head characteristics, few associations were observed, and there exist differences between the regions. Conclusions: This study has provided empirical evidence on the associations of illness/medical expenditure with demographics and with other categories of expenditures. Differences across regions were observed in multiple aspects. The reasons underlying such differences are worth investigating further.
AB - Background: Illness and the medical expenditure that follows have a profound impact on the well-being of individuals and households. China is a huge country with significant regional differences. The goal of this study is to investigate the associations of illness and medical expenditure with other categories of household expenditures, with special attention paid to the differences in observations between the western and eastern regions. Methods: A survey was conducted in six major cities in China, three in the east and three in the west, in 2011. Data on demographics, illness conditions, and medical and other expenditures were collected from 12,515 households. Results: In the analysis of the associations of illness conditions and medical expenditure with demographics, multiple significant associations were observed, and there are differences between the eastern and western regions. In univariate analyses, illness conditions and medical expenditure were found as having significant associations with other categories of expenditures. In multivariate analyses adjusting for household and household head characteristics, few associations were observed, and there exist differences between the regions. Conclusions: This study has provided empirical evidence on the associations of illness/medical expenditure with demographics and with other categories of expenditures. Differences across regions were observed in multiple aspects. The reasons underlying such differences are worth investigating further.
KW - China
KW - Cross-region difference
KW - Household expenditure
KW - Illness condition
KW - Medical expenditure
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U2 - 10.1186/s12913-015-0730-6
DO - 10.1186/s12913-015-0730-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 25879667
AN - SCOPUS:84928016323
SN - 1472-6963
VL - 15
JO - BMC Health Services Research
JF - BMC Health Services Research
IS - 1
M1 - 69
ER -