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Changes in Perceived Accessibility to Healthcare from the Elderly between 2005 and 2014 in China: An Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition Analysis.

ABSTRACT: Elderly people are characterized with high needs for healthcare, accompanied by high barriers in access to healthcare. This study aimed to identify temporal changes in access to healthcare and determinants of such changes from the elderly in China, over the period between 2005 and 2014. Two waves (2005 and 2014) of data were extracted from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), measuring changes in perceived accessibility to healthcare when needed by the elderly (?65 years). The effects of the explanatory variables (need, predisposing and enabling factors) on the changes were divided into two components using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method: (1) the endowment portion as a result of distribution differences of the explanatory variables and (2) the coefficient portion as a result of differential responses of the dependent variable to the explanatory variables. Perceived accessibility to healthcare from the elderly increased from 89.6% in 2005 to 96.7% in 2014. The coefficient portion (82%) contributed more to the change than the endowment portion (63%) after adjustments for a negative interaction effect (-45%) between the two. Lower perceived accessibility was associated with older age, lower income, lower affordability of daily expenses and lower insurance coverage. But the coefficient effects suggested that their impacts on perceived accessibility to healthcare declined over time. By contrast, the impacts of gender and out-of-pocket payment ratio for medical care on perceived accessibility to healthcare increased over time. Perceived accessibility to healthcare from the elderly improved between 2005 and 2014. Gender gaps are closing. But the increased effect of out-of-pocket medical payments on perceived accessibility to healthcare deserves further investigation and policy interventions.

SUBMITTER: Zhang T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6843178 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Changes in Perceived Accessibility to Healthcare from the Elderly between 2005 and 2014 in China: An Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition Analysis.

Zhang Tao T Liu Jing J Liu Chaojie C

International journal of environmental research and public health 20191010 20

Elderly people are characterized with high needs for healthcare, accompanied by high barriers in access to healthcare. This study aimed to identify temporal changes in access to healthcare and determinants of such changes from the elderly in China, over the period between 2005 and 2014. Two waves (2005 and 2014) of data were extracted from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), measuring changes in perceived accessibility to healthcare when needed by the elderly (≥65 years). ...[more]

PMID: 31658753

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Project description:Objectives:The present research was conducted aiming at assessing the association of socioeconomic inequality in the prevalence of risk factors associated with cardio-metabolic disorders in a sample population of nationally representative Iranian adolescents and to identify its influencing factors. Methods:This study was conducted as part of a national-based surveillance program performed on 5625 individuals aged 10-18 years in 27 provinces in Iran. To determine the socioeconomic status (SES) of participants, we defined a new variable by applying the principal component analysis. Doing so, the socioeconomic inequality in cardio-metabolic risk factors was examined over the tertiles of SES using concentration index (C). Then, Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition analysis was carried out in order to decide upon the roots of inequality in the health system. Results:The mean (standard deviation) age of participants was 14.73 (2.41) years. The prevalence of cardio-metabolic parameters had considerable difference across SES tertiles. Elevated fasting blood glucose (FBG), elevated triglycerides (TG), abdominal obesity, elevated total cholesterol (TC), and metabolic syndrome (MetS) increased linearly by increasing SES tertiles. C index for depressed high density lipoprotein- cholesterol (HDL-C) was negative, which was suggestive of inequality in favor of high SES groups and for other cardio-metabolic parameters, it was positive, which indicate inequality was in favor of the lowest SES groups. The highest gap between the first and third tertiles of socioeconomic was for frequency of abdominal obesity; 13.18% of the lowest SES groups and 20.11% of the highest SES groups had abdominal obesity which accounts 6.93% gap in favor of the highest SES groups. The living area could be named as the main variables standing for the inequality of elevated FBS, elevated LDL-c, low HDL-c and abdominal obesity frequency between the first and the last SES group. In addition, BMI could stand as the main independent variable explaining the gap in elevated TG, elevated TC, elevated BP and MetS prevalence across the lowest and the highest SES group. Conclusions:The study revealed the considerable inequality in the prevalence of cardio-metabolic risk factors between the highest and the lowest SES groups of Iranian adolescents. Living area and BMI are the two main factors which explained inequality in prevalence of cardio metabolic risk factors between SES groups. These estimations could provide health policy markers with practical information for future complementary analyses.

Project description:Measles is a highly contagious and severe disease. Despite mass vaccination, it remains a leading cause of death in children in developing regions, killing 114,900 globally in 2014. In 2006, China committed to eliminating measles by 2012; to this end, the country enhanced its mandatory vaccination programs and achieved vaccination rates reported above 95% by 2008. However, in spite of these efforts, during the last 3 years (2013-2015) China documented 27,695, 52,656, and 42,874 confirmed measles cases. How measles manages to spread in China-the world's largest population-in the mass vaccination era remains poorly understood. To address this conundrum and provide insights for future public health efforts, we analyze the geospatial pattern of measles transmission across China during 2005-2014. We map measles incidence and incidence rates for each of the 344 cities in mainland China, identify the key socioeconomic and demographic features associated with high disease burden, and identify transmission clusters based on the synchrony of outbreak cycles. Using hierarchical cluster analysis, we identify 21 epidemic clusters, of which 12 were cross-regional. The cross-regional clusters included more underdeveloped cities with large numbers of emigrants than would be expected by chance (p = 0.011; bootstrap sampling), indicating that cities in these clusters were likely linked by internal worker migration in response to uneven economic development. In contrast, cities in regional clusters were more likely to have high rates of minorities and high natural growth rates than would be expected by chance (p = 0.074; bootstrap sampling). Our findings suggest that multiple highly connected foci of measles transmission coexist in China and that migrant workers likely facilitate the transmission of measles across regions. This complex connection renders eradication of measles challenging in China despite its high overall vaccination coverage. Future immunization programs should therefore target these transmission foci simultaneously.

Dataset Information

Changes in Perceived Accessibility to Healthcare from the Elderly between 2005 and 2014 in China: An Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition Analysis.

Publications

Changes in Perceived Accessibility to Healthcare from the Elderly between 2005 and 2014 in China: An Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition Analysis.

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