scholarly journals Private Healthcare Expenditure in China: A Regional Comparative Analysis

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1374
Author(s):  
Shangguang Yang ◽  
Danyang Wang ◽  
Lu Xu ◽  
Chunlan Wang ◽  
Xi Yang ◽  
...  

Private (out-of-pocket) healthcare expenditure (PHCE) is a complex phenomenon that is shaped by many different factors. In this paper, we analyzed the influencing factors of PHCE in China, with a specific focus on regional differences. We found that old-age dependency ratio, income, and education have significant impacts on PHCE in all regions, whereas public HCE, number of beds in medical institutions, and economic development levels have significant impacts only in some regions. The results indicate that the government should pay attention to regional inequality and implement targeted adjustments for improving the health service system. In particular, we recommend: (1) monitoring regional inequality in PHCE and other healthcare issues to unmask geographical differences in healthcare interventions; (2) adopting regional-specific policy measures—the government should divert some resources from eastern to western and central regions to increasing the support for public health undertakings and improve the quality of the local health services while providing matching medical resources by targeting the needs of the residents; (3) paying more attention to the healthcare demand of the elderly population; and (4) improving the education level of residents to improve public health and avoid high PHCE.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 974-982
Author(s):  
Nipaporn Chutiman ◽  
Pannarat Guayjarernpanishk ◽  
Butsakorn Kong-ied ◽  
Piyapatr Busababodhin ◽  
Monchaya Chiangpradit

Climate change causes the spread of non-vector diseases due to the influence of climate uncertainty. The elderly group, which is vulnerable, is affected by such disasters. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to forecast epidemic peaks of food poisoning, which was found as one of the re-emerging diseases in elderly people in Khon Kaen Province, Maha Sarakham Province, and Roi Et Province, which are in the Northeastern region of Thailand by using 2 types of Grey Model: GM(1,1) and Discrete Grey Model (DGM). The monthly rate of food poisoning incidence per 100,000 elderly people from January 2017 to December 2020 i.e., 48 months in total were used in the study. The study result revealed that the DGM had higher forecasting effectiveness than that of the GM(1,1) in all three provinces. The food poisoning incidences in elderly people were forecasted to re-emerge from August to September 2021 in Khon Kaen Province, from August to September 2022 in Maha Sarakham Province, and from May to June 2022 in Roi Et Province. The results of this study are useful and helpful for the government, the Ministry of Public Health and related cooperatives to effectively help services planning resource preparation and prevention measures. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01325 Full Text: PDF


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
Jacques Scheres ◽  
Leopold Curfs

The authorities’ first responses were the classification of COVID-19 as Group A-disease in the sense of the Law on Public Health, scaling up of regular crisis control structures, installation of an Outbreak Management Team OMT and a “National Operational Team-Corona”. COVID-surveillance is done by the RIVM (National Public Health Institute), and is based on data from Municipal Public Health Services (GGDs) supplemented with additional (inter)national sources. The OMT is the main advisory body regarding preventive measures and includes experts from relevant medical specialisms. Organisations of medical professionals gave separate advices. Sanctions to preventive measures can be fines and closure of accommodations. Initially, 80% of the population trusted the government’s messages and “intelligent lockdown” strategy. The Prime Minister’s addresses to the people were highly appreciated. However, at slow-down of the outbreak (May-June) society’s trust crumbled (“quarantine-fatigue”). The initial testing policy was very restricted and contrary to WHO’s adagium “Test, test, test!”. In June the Minister of Health announced that a capacity of 30.000 tests per day was achieved, to be scaled up to 70.000. The crises management’s primary concern was to increase the (ICU-)bed capacity and was achieved by transforming regular wards into COVID-care, setting-up external “Corona-wards” in hotels, and regional, interregional and crossborder spreading of COVID-patients. This focus on ICU-bed capacity was criticized, as half of the death cases and extreme equipment shortages occurred in other sectors (nursing homes, homecare, homes for the elderly, psychiatry, mental handicaps). Transformation of hospital wards also led to waiting lists for non-COVID care. End of June the government presented a step-by-step easing of the lockdown in which a fine-tuned epidemiological surveillance dashboard and the continuation of economical support for the economic sector are the backbones.


2010 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosina-Martha Csöff ◽  
Gloria Macassa ◽  
Jutta Lindert

Körperliche Beschwerden sind bei Älteren weit verbreitet; diese sind bei Migranten bislang in Deutschland und international noch wenig untersucht. Unsere multizentrische Querschnittstudie erfasste körperliche Beschwerden bei Menschen im Alter zwischen 60 und 84 Jahren mit Wohnsitz in Stuttgart anhand der Kurzversion des Gießener Beschwerdebogens (GBB-24). In Deutschland wurden 648 Personen untersucht, davon 13.4 % (n = 87) nicht in Deutschland geborene. Die Geschlechterverteilung war bei Migranten und Nichtmigranten gleich; der sozioökonomische Status lag bei den Migranten etwas niedriger: 8.0 % (n = 7) der Migranten und 2.5 % (n = 14) der Nichtmigranten verfügten über höchstens vier Jahre Schulbildung; 12.6 % (n = 11) der Migranten und 8.2 % (n = 46) der Nichtmigranten hatten ein monatliches Haushaltsnettoeinkommen von unter 1000€; 26.4 % der Migranten und 38.1 % (n = 214) der Nichtmigranten verfügten über mehr als 2000€ monatlich. Somatische Beschwerden lagen bei den Migranten bei 65.5 % (n = 57) und bei den Nichtmigranten bei 55.8 % (n = 313). Frauen wiesen häufiger somatische Beschwerden auf (61.8 %) als Männer (51.8 %). Mit steigendem Alter nahmen somatische Beschwerden zu. Mit Ausnahme der Altersgruppe der 70–74-Jährigen konnte kein signifikanter Unterschied zwischen Migranten und Nichtmigranten hinsichtlich der Häufigkeit körperlicher Beschwerden gezeigt werden. Ausblick: Es werden dringend bevölkerungsrepräsentative Studien zu körperlichen Beschwerden bei Migranten benötigt.


Author(s):  
Nurul Rofiqo ◽  
Agus Perdana Windarto ◽  
Dedy Hartama

This study aims to utilize Clushtering Algorithm in grouping the number of people who have health complaints with the K-means algorithm in Indonesia. The source of this research data was collected based on the documents of the provincial population which had health complaints produced by the National Statistics Agency. The data used in this study are data from 2013-2017 consisting of 34 provinces. The method used in this research is K-means Algorithm. Data will be processed by clushtering in 3 clushter, namely clusther high health complaints, clusther moderate and low health complaints. Centroid data for high population level clusters 37.48, Centroid data for moderate population level clusters 27.08, and Centroid data for low population level clusters 14.89. So that obtained an assessment based on the population index that has health complaints with 7 provinces of high health complaints, namely Central Java, Yogyakarta, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, South Kalimantan, Gorontalo, 18 provinces of moderate health complaints, and 9 other provinces including low health complaints. This can be an input to the government to give more attention to residents in each region who have high health complaints through improving public health services so that the Indonesian population becomes healthier without health complaints.Keywords: data mining, health complaints, clustering, K-means, Indonesian residents


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Mohammed Mustapha Namadi

Corruption is pervasive in Nigeria at all levels. Thus, despite recent gains in healthcare provision, the health sector faces numerous corruption related challenges. This study aims at examining areas of corruption in the health sector with specific focus on its types and nature. A sample size of 480 respondents aged 18 years and above was drawn from the eight Metropolitan Local Government Areas of Kano State, using the multistage sampling technique. The results revealed evidence of corrupt practices including those related to unnecessary-absenteeism, diversion of patients from the public health facilities to the private sector, diverting money meant for the purchase of equipment, fuel and diesel, bribery, stealing of medications, fraud, misappropriation of medications and unjustifiable reimbursement claims. In order to resolve the problem of corrupt practices in the healthcare sector, the study recommended the need for enforcement of appropriate code of ethics guiding the conduct of the health professionals, adoption of anti-corruption strategies, and strengthening the government monitoring system to check corruption in public health sector in order to ensure equitable access to healthcare services among the under-privileged people in the society.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002073142199484
Author(s):  
Finn Diderichsen

Sweden has since the start of the pandemic a COVID-19 mortality rate that is 4 to 10 times higher than in the other Nordic countries. Also, measured as age-standardized all-cause excess mortality in the first half of 2020 compared to previous years Sweden failed in comparison with the other Nordic countries, but only among the elderly. Sweden has large socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in COVID-19 mortality. Geographical, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequalities in mortality can be due to differential exposure to the virus, differential immunity, and differential survival. Most of the country differences are due to differential exposure, but the socioeconomic disparities are mainly driven by differential survival due to an unequal burden of comorbidity. Sweden suffered from an unfortunate timing of tourists returning from virus hotspots in the Alps and Sweden's government response came later and was much more limited than elsewhere. The government had an explicit priority to protect the elderly in nursing and care homes but failed to do so. The staff in elderly care are less qualified and have harder working conditions in Sweden, and they lacked adequate care for the clients. Sweden has in recent years diverged from the Scandinavian welfare model by strong commercialization of primary care and elderly care.


Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 643
Author(s):  
Jiangang Shi ◽  
Wenwen Hua ◽  
Daizhong Tang ◽  
Ke Xu ◽  
Quanwei Xu

Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and customer satisfaction theory, we constructed a satisfaction model for supply–demand satisfaction for community-based senior care (SSCSC) combined with the psychological perspective of the elderly, and four dimensions of basic living needs (BLNs), living environment (LE), personal traits (PTs), and livability for the aged (LA) were selected to construct the model. The data were obtained from 296 questionnaires from seniors over 50 years old (or completed by relatives on their behalf, according to their actual situation). Twenty-two observed variables were selected for the five latent variables, and their interactions were explored using structural equation modeling. The results showed that LA was the most significant factor influencing SSCSC, and it was followed by BLNs and LE. PTs did not show a direct effect on LA, but they could have an indirect effect on SSCSC through influencing BLNs and LE. Based on the current state of community aging satisfaction, we propose to establish a community elderly care service system based on the basic needs of the elderly population, providing differentiated and refined elderly care services and improving the level of aging-friendly communities. This study provides references for the government to formulate relevant policies and other supply entities to make strategic decisions and has important implications for further enhancing community elderly services to become an important part of the social security system for the elderly.


2020 ◽  
pp. 152483992097298
Author(s):  
Alexis K. Grant

Local health departments (LHDs) are positioned to act as the community health strategist for their catchment area, which requires cross-sector collaboration. However, little research exists to understand how much and what types of cross-sector collaboration occur and its impact on LHD practice. Data from 490 LHDs who participated in the 2016 National Profile of Local Health Departments survey were analyzed to identify patterns of cross-sector collaboration among LHDs. In the survey, LHDs reported the presence of collaborative activities for each of 22 categories of organizations. Factor analysis was used to identify patterns in the types of organizations with which LHDs collaborate. Then, cluster analysis was conducted to identify patterns in the types of cross-sector collaboration, and cross-sectional analyses examined which LHD characteristics were associated with cluster assignment. LHDs collaborated most with traditional health care–oriented organizations, but less often with organizations focused on upstream determinants of health such as housing. Three distinct clusters represented collaboration patterns in LHDs: coordinators, networkers, and low-collaborators. LHDs who were low-collaborators were more likely to serve smaller populations, be unaccredited, have a smaller workforce, have a White top executive, and have a top executive without a graduate degree. These findings imply that public health practitioners should prioritize building bridges to a variety of organizations and engage in collaboration beyond information sharing. Furthermore, LHDs should prioritize accreditation and workforce development activities for supporting cross-sector collaboration. With these investments, the public health system can better address the social and structural determinants of health and promote health equity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
T Vivas ◽  
M Duarte ◽  
A Pitta ◽  
B Christovam

Abstract Background The government investments in quality primary healthcare are the basis to strengthening the health systems and monitoring the public expenditure in this area is a way to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the public health policies. The Brazil Ministry of Health changed, in 2017, the method of onlending federal resources to states and cities seeking to make the public funds management more flexible. This change, however, suppressed mandatory investments in primary healthcare. This research aims to determine the difference of expenditures on primary healthcare in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil metropolitan area before and after this funding reform, seeking to verify how it can impact the quality of primary healthcare services and programs. Methods This is an ecological time-series study that used data obtained in the Brazil Ministry of Health budget reports. The median and interquartile range of expenditures on primary healthcare (set as the percentage of total public health budget applied in primary care services and programs) of the 13 cities in the Salvador metropolitan area were compared two years before and after the reform. Results The median of expenditures on primary healthcare in Salvador metropolitan area was 25.5% (13,9% - 32,2%) of total public health budget before and 24.8% (20.8% - 30.0%) of total public health budget after the reform (-0.7% difference). Seven cities decreased the expenditures on primary healthcare after the reform, ranging from 1.2% to 10.8% reduction in the primary healthcare budget in five years. Conclusions Expenditures on primary healthcare in Salvador metropolitan area decreased after the 2017 funding reform. Seven of 13 cities reduced the government investments on primary healthcare services and programs in this scenario. Although the overall difference was -0.7%, the budget cuts ranged from 1.2% to 10.8% in the analyzed period and sample. More studies should assess these events in wide areas and with long time ranges. Key messages Public health funding models can impact the primary healthcare settings regardless of the health policy. Reforms in the funding models should consider the possible benefits before implementation. Funding models and methods that require mandatory investments in primary healthcare may be considered over more flexible ones.


Author(s):  
Youngjun Park ◽  
Haekwon Chung ◽  
Sohyun Park

Aim: This study explores the changes in regular walking activities during the phases of the pandemic. Background: With the spread of COVID-19 transmission, people are refraining from going out, reducing their physical activity. In South Korea, COVID-19 broke out in the 4th week of 2020 and experienced the first cycle phases of the pandemic, such as outbreak, widespread, and decline. In response to the pandemic, the government encouraged voluntary participation in social distancing campaigns, and people reduced their outside activities. Methods: This article examines the decrease and increase of the Prevalence of Regular Walking (≥30 min of moderate walking a day, on ≥5 days a week) by the COVID-19 phases. This study is based on weekly walking data for 15 weeks in 2020, via the smartphone healthcare app, which is managed by 25 public health offices of the Seoul government. Results: According to the findings, the level of prevalence of regular walking (PRW) has a significant difference before and after the outbreak, and every interval of the four-stage COVID-19 phases, that is, pre-pandemic, initiation, acceleration, and deceleration. The level of PRW sharply decreased during initiation and acceleration intervals. In the deceleration interval of COVID-19, the PRW kept increasing, but it has not yet reached the same level as the previous year when the COVID-19 did not exist. Conclusions: As a preliminary study, this study explains empirically how COVID-19 changed PRW in Seoul. It would be helpful to enhance our understanding of the changes in physical inactivity in the pandemic period.


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