Institute of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Health Econ. 2012 Apr;21(4):367-85. doi: 10.1002/hec.1717. Epub 2011 Feb 21.
While highly pertinent to the human welfare consequences of development, the impact of rapid urbanization on population health is not obvious. This paper uses community and individual-level longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey to estimate the net health impact of China's unprecedented urbanization. We construct an index of urbanicity from a broad set of community characteristics and define urbanization in terms of movements across the distribution of this index. We use difference-in-differences estimators to identify the treatment effect of urbanization on the self-assessed health of individuals. We find that urbanization raises the probability of reporting of poor health and that a greater degree of urbanization has a larger effect. The effect may, in part, be attributable to changed health expectations, but it also appears to operate through health behaviour. Populations experiencing urbanization tend to consume more fat and smoke more.
虽然快速城市化对人口健康的影响与人类福祉息息相关，但并不明显。本文利用中国健康与营养调查的社区和个人层面的纵向数据，来估计中国前所未有的城市化进程对健康的净影响。我们从广泛的社区特征中构建了一个城市化指数，并根据该指数的分布来定义城市化。我们使用双重差分估计量来识别城市化对个体自评健康的处理效应。我们发现，城市化提高了报告健康状况不佳的概率，且城市化程度越高，影响越大。这种影响可能部分归因于健康期望的改变，但也似乎通过健康行为发挥作用。经历城市化的人群往往会摄入更多的脂肪和更多地吸烟。
