Reprint of: Health outcomes and socio-economic status among the mid-aged and elderly in China: Evidence from the CHARLS national baseline data

Abstract

Using a very rich set of health indicators that include both self-reported measures and biomarkers from the CHARLS national baseline data, we document health conditions of the Chinese mid-aged and elderly, examine correlations between these health outcomes and socio-economic status and compare these associations by gender, hukou status and region. As expected, we find that Chinese mid-aged and elderly are facing challenges from chronic diseases including hypertension. Overnutrition has become a bigger problem than undernutrition, particularly for women, reflected in a higher rate of overweight compared to underweight. Disability rates are also high, especially for female, rural and inland respondents, who also report suffering from more pain than male, urban and coastal ones. In general, education and PCE tend to be positively correlated with better health outcomes, as it is in other countries. For PCE the relationship is very nonlinear. At low levels of PCE, there exists a positive correlation with better health outcomes, while for higher levels of PCE the relationship flattens out. Unmeasured community influences turn out to be highly important, much more so than one usually finds in other countries. We also find a large degree of under-diagnosis of hypertension, a major health problems that afflicts the aged, although less large than in some other developing countries. This implies that the current health system is still not well prepared to address the rapid aging of the Chinese population.

Does health insurance contribute to improved utilization of health care services for the elderly in rural Tanzania? A cross-sectional study

“…Although little is known about health care equity in Tanzania, our findings are somewhat similar to those of Mtei et al [ 10 ], which indicated a fairly even equal distribution of health care benefits among the members of the community health fund in the country. Our findings differ from those in many African countries, and other countries like China [ 52 ] and India [ 53 ]. For example, studies conducted in Ghana in the population aged 50 and above show a pro-rich inequity whereby those with high incomes accessed more outpatient care than those with low incomes for the same health needs [ 54 , 55 , 56 ].…”

Hypertension awareness, treatment, and control and their association with healthcare access in the middle-aged and older Indian population: A nationwide cohort study

“…For example, Marshall and colleagues [ 32 ] reported that hypertension awareness among American and English adults aged 50 years and older was 84% and 76%, respectively, more than 20 percentage points higher than in India. However, the rates in our data resembled those of Chinese adults aged 45 years and older with hypertension, which were 57% for men and 59% for women [ 33 ].…”

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“…Demographic characteristics included age, gender (male as the reference group), marital status (unmarried or single as the reference group), residency (urban as the reference group), and education (illiterate as the reference group). 37,38 Health habits included body mass index (BMI; kg/m 2 ), smoking (non-smoking as the reference group) and drinking (non-drinking as the reference group). Health comorbidities included self-reported health status (fair or poor as the reference group) and self-reported chronic diseases (no chronic diseases as the reference group).…”