School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
Research Center for the Belt and Road Health Policy and Health Technology Assessment, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Feb 12;18(4):1784. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18041784.
With the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization in China, environmental issues have become an urgent problem, especially issues related to air, water, and solid-waste pollution. These pollutants pose threats to the health of the population and to that of communities and have a vicious influence on the healthcare system. Additionally, pollution also exhibits spill-over effects, which means that pollution in the local region could affect the healthcare services in a neighboring region. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relationship between pollution and healthcare. A spatial autocorrelation analysis was conducted and spatial panel econometric models were constructed to explore the characteristics of pollution and healthcare services in China and the relationship between them using data on all 31 provinces over 12 consecutive years (2006-2017). The results showed that the utilization of healthcare services and environmental pollution were not randomly distributed; unsurprisingly, air pollution and solid-waste pollution were mainly found in parts of northern China, while water pollution was highest in southern and coastal China. In addition, environmental pollution exhibited spill-over effects on healthcare services. For example, a 1% increase in solid waste in one specific geographical unit was estimated to increase the inpatient visits per capita in adjacent counties by 0.559%. Specifically, pollution showed different degrees of influence on healthcare services, which means that the impact of environmental pollution on the number of outpatient visits is greater than on the number of inpatient visits. Our results provide the government with evidence for effectively formulating and promulgating policies, especially policies aimed at tackling spill-over effects among different regions.
随着中国城市化和工业化的快速发展，环境问题已成为一个紧迫的问题，特别是与空气、水和固体废物污染有关的问题。这些污染物对人口和社区的健康构成威胁，并对医疗保健系统产生恶性影响。此外，污染还具有溢出效应，这意味着当地的污染可能会影响邻近地区的医疗保健服务。因此，有必要探讨污染与医疗保健之间的关系。本文利用中国 31 个省（自治区、直辖市）12 年（2006-2017 年）的面板数据，采用空间自相关分析和空间面板计量经济模型，探讨了中国污染与医疗服务的特征及其之间的关系。结果表明，医疗服务的利用和环境污染的分布并非随机的；毫不奇怪，空气污染和固体废物污染主要集中在中国北方部分地区，而水污染则集中在中国南方和沿海地区。此外，环境污染对医疗服务具有溢出效应。例如，一个特定地理单元的固体废物增加 1%，预计会使相邻县的人均住院就诊次数增加 0.559%。具体而言，污染对医疗服务的影响程度不同，这意味着环境污染对门诊就诊人数的影响大于对住院就诊人数的影响。本文的研究结果为政府有效制定和颁布政策提供了证据，特别是针对不同地区间溢出效应的政策。
