The new GLO Discussion Paper finds that township healthcare centers located in more remote areas provided more medical services, especially outpatient services.
GLO Discussion Paper No. 1309, 2023
Do Primary Healthcare Facilities in More Remote Areas Provide More Medical Services? Spatial Evidence from Rural Western China – Download PDF
by Shen, Chi & Lai, Sha & Deng, Qiwei & Cao, Dan & Zhao, Dantong & Zhao, Yaxin & Zhou, Zhongliang & Dong, Wanyue & Chen, Xi
GLO Fellow Xi Chen & Editor of the Journal of Population Economics.
Author Abstract: Primary healthcare institutions (PHIs) in China have experienced a sizable decline in medical services in recent years. Despite the large regional disparities in China, there is a lack of evidence on the differential patterns of medical services offered by PHIs, especially from a spatial perspective. This study examines whether residents in more remote areas use more medical services offered by township healthcare centers (THCs), a main type of PHIs. Linking medical visits to 923 THCs in a western Chinese province in 2020 with the driving time and geographic coordinates from the Gaode map, a leading map navigation provider in China, we applied a multilevel linear model and a geographically weighted regression to examine spatial heterogeneity in medical service utilization. We showed that a one-hour increase in the shortest driving time between THCs and the local county hospitals was associated with an average 6% increase in THCs outpatient visits and a 0.6% increase in THCs inpatient visits. Our findings suggest that THCs located in more remote areas provided more medical services, especially outpatient services.
Journal of Population Economics (JOPE)
JOPE has CiteScore 9.2 (2022, LINK) & Impact Factor 6.1 (2022); 524 K Downloads (2022)
JUST PUBLISHED
Vol. 36, Issue 3, July 2023: 26 articles on: Aspirations and preferences; Environment, Weather, Climate; Family; Fertility; Historical demography; Ageing, pensions, social security; Migration
ONLINE FIRST: 26 articles forthcoming in Volume 36, Issue 4, 2023.
CALL FOR PAPERS
JOPE invites paper submissions for the following collections:
– Abortions
– Covid-19 and diseases
– Lifecycle fertility models
– Sexual and domestic violence
– Sexuality including LGBT issues
– Statistics & measurement of population economics
For more details and for examples of already published papers in these collections see:
https://glabor.org/collections-journal-of-population-economics-invites-paper-submissions-in-six-research-areas/
https://link.springer.com/journal/148/collections
JOPE Collections are a set of published papers on issues of significant relevance for the journal. Authors are continuously invited to submit their related work for evaluation stating their specific interest to contribute in the submission cover letter. JOPE Editors will treat those submissions with particular interest and speedy handling. Articles will be immediately published after final acceptance.
GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS, EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Ends;