Regional Disparity in Health and Health Care in China

One major critique of the Chinese economic reform focuses on disparities in development. This study examines the recent trends in the disparities in health and health care resources across the provinces. This study also examines the relationship between health status, health care resources, and socioeconomic status. A panel data from "All China Data" and China Health Statistic Yearbooks is used in this study. These data include health status, health care resources, and socioeconomic status variables at the provincial level from 1980 to 2003. Index of disparity was used as the indicator for measuring regional disparity in health and health care resources. A fixed effect model was used to estimate the relationships between health status and health care resources and their potential determinants. The results of this study show that the disparities in maternal mortality, number of beds, and number of doctors increased and then declined in most recent years. However, the values of their indexes of disparity in 2002 are still higher than their values in 1985. Therefore the disparities in health status and health care resources across the provinces increased after the economic reform. The results of this study also suggest that socioeconomic status has significant association with health status and health care resources. The association between socioeconomic indicators and health status and health care resources varies in different economic zones.