Researchers from Peking University Report New Studies and Findings in the Area of Self Care (Health care-seeking behaviours and health expenditures…

Insurance Weekly News

Researchers from Peking University Report New Studies and Findings in the Area of Self Care (Health care-seeking behaviours and health expenditures in adults aged 45?years and older in China, 2011-2013)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- New research on Self Care is the subject of a report. According to news reporting originating from Beijing, People's Republic of China, by VerticalNews correspondents, research stated, "To provide an assessment of China's progress to universal health coverage (UHC) from the perspective of people-centred care. We obtained data on 28?103 participants from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHALRS) during 2011-2013."

Funders for this research include National Natural Science Foundation of China, China National Natural Science Foundation Excellent Young Scientist Program.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Peking University, "We used logistic regressions and generalised linear models to analyse care-seeking behaviours and medical expenditures. We found that 95.5% of the subjects were covered by social health insurance in 2013, and nearly 60% subjects in need of medical care were self-medicated. Health insurance was a strong predictor for the access to outpatient care. Use of pure and mixed self-medication increased by 15% and 32% respectively, while use of pure outpatient care fell by 10% between 2011 and 2013, after adjusting for predisposing, service needs and enabling factors. Such trends were particularly evident for the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance and the New Cooperative Medical Scheme, which covered more than 80%. The monthly out-of-pocket medical expenditures and the probability of encountering catastrophic health expenditures for outpatient care were four times larger than that for self-medication. Between 2011 and 2013, outpatient care medical costs rose by nearly 50%, whereas there was no such obvious trend for self-medication. People with insurance schemes offering lower cost sharing incurred consistently higher out-of-pocket outpatient payments. The monitoring of global progress to UHC should incorporate self-medication. In China, it seems that the current reform and the huge government investment have not resulted in access to affordable quality care."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "To achieve UHC, not only universal insurance, but system-level efforts are needed."

For more information on this research see: Health care-seeking behaviours and health expenditures in adults aged 45?years and older in China, 2011-2013. Tropical Medicine & International Health, 2017;():. (Wiley-Blackwell - www.wiley.com/; Tropical Medicine & International Health - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-3156)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting J. Li, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

Keywords for this news article include: Asia, Beijing, Self Care, Self Medication, Health Insurance, Drugs and Therapies, People's Republic of China.