IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 4018: Health Inequality Among the Elderly in Rural China and Influencing Factors: Evidence from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey

IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 4018: Health Inequality Among the Elderly in Rural China and Influencing Factors: Evidence from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph16204018 Authors: Pan Fan Yang Deng Based on data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), this paper calculates the health distribution of the elderly using the Quality of Well-Being Scale (QWB) score, and then estimates health inequality among the elderly in rural China using the Wagstaff index (WI) and Erreygers index (EI). Following this, it compares health inequalities among the elderly in different age groups, and finally, uses the Shapley and recentered influence function-index-ordinary least squares (RIF-I-OLS) model to decompose the effect of four factors on health inequality among the elderly in rural China. The QWB score distribution shows that the health of the elderly in rural China improved with social economic development and medical reform from 2002 to 2014. However, at the same time, we were surprised to find that the health level of the 65–74 years old group has been declining steadily since 2008. This phenomenon implies that the incidence of chronic diseases is moving towards the younger elderly. The WI and EI show that there is indeed pro-rich health inequality among the rural elderly, the health inequality of the younger age groups is more serious than...
Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research