Huazhong University of Science and Technology Reports Findings in Public Health (Preferences for public long-term care insurance among middle-aged and elderly residents: A discrete choice experiment in Hubei Province, China): Health and Medicine – Public Health

2023 FEB 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Daily China News -- New research on Health and Medicine - Public Health is the subject of a report. According to news reporting out of Hubei, People’s Republic of China, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “It is critical to incorporate residents’ preferences into the design of long-term care insurance (LTCI). However, little is known about middle-aged and elderly residents’ preferences for personalized need-related attributes of LTCI in China.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, “Through a discrete choice experiment (DCE), we aimed to focus on the direct beneficiaries of LTCI and then elicit their preferences for LTCI under a hypothetical scenario of dysfunction. Attributes and levels were defined through a literature review and two rounds of expert consultations ( = 8). A D-optimal fractional factorial design was used to generate the DCE questionnaire. Face-to-face interviews with middle-aged and elderly residents were conducted in two cities in Hubei Province, China, between November and December 2020. A mixed logit model was utilized for estimation. Five attributes were identified and incorporated into the DCE questionnaire. A total of 390 participants completed DCE questionnaires. Care facilities, care content, reimbursement rate, caregivers, and annual premium per person all had a significant impact on residents’ preferences. Residents had significantly higher preferences for the LTCI scheme with home and community-based care centers (b = 1.40, < 0.01), multi-level services (b = 0.44, < 0.01), 90% reimbursement rate (b = 0.37, < 0.01), and sufficiently trained caregivers (b = 0.26, < 0.01). Individual characteristics, such as gender, employment, and education level were the factors that drove heterogeneity in preferences for LTCI. This study provides new evidence on the preferences of middle-aged and elderly residents for personalized need-related public LTCI features.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “The design of the LTCI scheme in China needs to take these findings into account to maximize the utility for direct beneficiaries of LTCI and enhance their enrollment.”

For more information on this research see: Preferences for public long-term care insurance among middle-aged and elderly residents: A discrete choice experiment in Hubei Province, China. Frontiers in Public Health, 2023;11:1050407. Frontiers in Public Health can be contacted at: Frontiers Media Sa, Avenue Du Tribunal Federal 34, Lausanne, Ch-1015, Switzerland.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Erping Jia, School of Medicine and Health Management, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China. Additional authors for this research include He Ma, Huimin Ma, Yanzhi Pan, Shan Jiang and Juyang Xiong.

Publisher contact information for the journal Frontiers in Public Health is: Frontiers Media Sa, Avenue Du Tribunal Federal 34, Lausanne, Ch-1015, Switzerland.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)