Regional differences in health status in China: Population health-related quality of life results from the National Health Services Survey 2008

Abstract

Purpose: to measure, describe and analyse regional differences in health-related quality of life measured by EQ-5D in China. Data were obtained via face-to-face interviews on a national representative sample (n=120,703, 15-103 years). The EQ-5D instrument was used to measure health status. Results: Rural areas had worse health status than urban areas. Health status was worst in western areas and best in eastern areas, and such disparities were profounder in rural areas. In urban areas, health status was best in middle-sized cities. In rural areas, health status increased with the economic development level of a county. Conclusion: Our study enhances understanding of the urban-rural differences and east-middle-west differences in health and sheds light on inequalities in health status between different city categories in the urban areas and county categories in the rural areas.

Linking health states to subjective well-being: an empirical study of 5854 rural residents in China

“…49.0% were male respondents, 50.3% were in the age group of 15e44 years, and 51.9% received education of primary school level and below. 41 In this study 19.1% respondents had been diagnosed with chronic diseases. The corresponding figure in 2008 NHSS was 14.0%.…”

Glucocorticoid receptor genetic polymorphisms is associated with improvement of health-related quality of life in Chinese population with systemic lupus erythematosus

“…First, the sample size of the current study is limited. Additionally, there may be regional differences in the disease activity and HRQOL of SLE patients in China [22,23]. In our study, SLE patients were recruited in Anhui province of China.…”

Subjective Well-Being and Its Association with Subjective Health Status, Age, Sex, Region, and Socio-economic Characteristics in a Chinese Population Study

“…Furthermore, as SWB is a culture-related concept (Lu 2006;Oishi 2010), qualitative studies amongst different population groups would facilitate the understanding of how well the existing measures truly capture the concept of well-being. There are also limitations with respect to defining socio-economic status, interviewer bias and ceiling effects of the EQ-5D instrument which have been discussed elsewhere (Sun et al 2011a(Sun et al , 2011b.…”

“…The HHS 2010 used the same protocol as the National Health Services Survey 2008 (NHSS 2008); details regarding the NHSS questionnaire, sample frame and interview procedure have been presented elsewhere (Sun et al 2011a(Sun et al , 2011b. The HHS 2010 questionnaire was based on a subset of questions from NHSS 2008, plus an additional question on happiness.…”

“…China is divided into three areas: eastern, middle and western areas (United Nations Development Programme 2005), previous studies showed that there is a gradient in socioeconomic status and health status in China across these areas (Sun et al 2011b;United Nations Development Programme 2005). In order to provide an overall picture regarding SWB in China, provinces from these different areas were selected.…”