Assessing equity of healthcare utilization in rural China: results from nationally representative surveys from 1993 to 2008

Zhou, Zhongliang; Su, Yanfang; Gao, Jianmin; Campbell, Benjamin; Zhu, Zhengwei; Xu, Ling; Zhang, Yaoguang

doi:10.1186/1475-9276-12-34

International Journal for Equity in Health

Table 3 Description of variables in the year of 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 (Percentage/means)

From: Assessing equity of healthcare utilization in rural China: results from nationally representative surveys from 1993 to 2008

Variables	Description	1993	1998	2003	2008
Healthcare utilization
The probability of outpatient visit	The probability of utilizing outpatient service in past two weeks	8.09	9.13	7.93	8.46
The probability of inpatient visit	The probability of utilizing inpatient service in the past year	3.33	3.07	3.37	6.16
Healthcare need
Sex	Male	50.1	50.9	50.4	49.7
	Female*	49.9	49.2	49.6	50.3
Agea	Age 15-34*	49.9	46.6	37.5	31.0
	Age 35-44	20.2	19.4	21.5	22.7
	Age 45-54	12.3	15.1	19.7	19.2
	Age 55-64	9.5	9.4	10.9	15.0
	Age 65+	8.2	9.5	10.4	12.2
Illness	Ill in last two weeks	12.7	13.8	14.9	18.4
	Not ill in last two weeks*	87.3	86.2	85.1	81.6
Chronic disease	Chronic disease	14.5	13.5	13.2	17.3
	No chronic disease*	85.5	86.5	86.8	82.7
Sick days	Sick days in last two weeks	8.5	8.7	7.9	8.5
Confined-to-bed days	Days staying in bed because of illness in last two weeks	1.1	1.0	1.3	1.2
Off-work days	Days off work or off school in last two weeks because of illness	2.3	2.5	1.8	1.4
Control variables
Smoking	Smoke	32.5	29.5	26.8	26.0
	Never smoke*	67.5	70.5	73.2	74.0
Drinking	Drink alcohol	18.9	16.2	15.7	13.1
	Never drink alcohol*	81.1	83.8	84.3	86.9
Marital status	Unmarried*	22.9	20.7	18.4	16.5
	Married	70.6	72.6	74.8	75.3
	Divorced	0.5	0.7	0.7	1.2
	Widowed	6.0	6.0	6.1	7.0
Education	Illiterate*	30.2	24.9	22.8	19.0
	Elementary school	33.8	33.1	31.2	31.5
	Secondary school	28.9	33.7	36.1	37.8
	High school	6.8	7.7	8.9	10.2
	University	0.4	0.6	1.1	1.5
Employment	Unemployment*	0.4	7.0	4.0	12.9
	Farmer	72.3	75.4	72.3	64.4
	Student	4.7	5.4	6.3	7.2
	Other occupations	22.7	12.2	17.5	15.5
Region	Eastern*	31.6	31.0	31.2	31.0
	Central	28.4	26.7	26.8	27.4
	Western	40.0	42.3	42.0	41.6
Health insurance	Uninsured*	82.7	87.5	87.5	6.5
	CMS/NCMS	10.5	7.1	9.7	90.2
	Other health insurance	6.8	5.4	2.8	3.3
Outpatient price	Median price of outpatient service (total expenses). Natural log of outpatient price is introduced in regression models.	10	21	39	72
Inpatient price	Median price of inpatient service (total expenses). Natural log of inpatient price is introduced in regression models.	345	980	1473	1977
Income	Consumption expenditure per capita. Natural log of income is introduced in regression models.	1335	1594	1786	3056

Note: * Reference groups. Per capita consumption expenditures in the year of 1998, 2003 and 2008 are deflated to the year of 1993 using consumer price index (CPI) at county level.

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ISSN: 1475-9276

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