Study on the Spatial Differentiation of Public Health Service Capabilities of European Union under the Background of the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract

Access to public health services is a cause that benefits the people and concerns the vital interests of the people. Everyone has access to basic health care services. The continuous improvement in people’s health is an important indicator of the improvement in people’s quality of life. This paper selects data from the European Union (EU) on aspects of public health expenditure, medical care resources, and government emergency coordination capacity from the period 2008 to 2017. Principal component analysis and factor analysis are used to measure their public health service capacity scores and conduct a comparative analysis. On this basis, the TOBIT model is adopted to explore the driving factors that lead to the spatial differentiation of public health service capabilities, and to combine it with the data of the COVID-19 epidemic as of 8 August 2020 from the official announcements of the World Health Organization and governments for further thinking. The results indicate that the public health service capacity of countries in the EU is showing a gradual increase. The capacity in Western Europe is, in turn, higher than that of Northern Europe, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe. In addition, the overall capacity in Western Europe is relatively high, but it is not balanced and stable, while Northern Europe has remained stable and balanced at a high level. Population density, degree of opening up, education level, economic development level, technological innovation level, and degree of aging have a positive effect on public health service capabilities. The level of urbanization has a negative effect on it. However, in countries with strong public health service capabilities, the epidemic of COVID-19 is more severe. The emergence of this paradox may be related to the detection capabilities of countries, the high probability of spreading thCOVID-19 epidemic, the inefficient implementation of government policy, the integrated system of the EU and the adverse selection of youth. This paper aims to improve the ability of the EU to respond to public health emergencies, improve the utilization of medical and health resources, and better protect people’s health from the perspective of public health service capacity.

Dynamics of Public Spending on Health and Socio-Economic Development in the European Union: An Analysis from the Perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals

“…Determinants of health expenditure include the level of income, the age structure of the population [ 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ], the form of health financing (whether public or private), technological innovation [ 58 , 59 ], population density [ 60 ], the level of the environment [ 61 ], the degree of development of cities, the health coverage of the foreign population [ 62 ] and the number of doctors per person [ 58 ]. Widespread ideas in recent studies highlight the suggestions made to policy planners to maximise public health benefits and environmental quality, which are closely related to sustainable GDP growth.…”

“…All of the above questions open up an interesting line of research, such as the creation of a sustainable health system, with a public health service capacity that allows the entire population to be adequately cared for. Some studies have already highlighted the situation in European Union member states [ 60 ], as well as the impact that Covid-19 has had on these countries in recent times. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected billions of people worldwide and has not only highlighted but also exacerbated the social and economic inequalities of recent decades [ 77 ].…”

A comparative study of strategies for containing the COVID-19 pandemic in Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the European Union

“…The strategies in the EU mainly focused on containing the clusters or infected zones, increasing testing, and ensuring healthcare access for COVID-19 patients. With the increase in the number of cases, healthcare resources in non-infected zones had to be utilized, which further increased the risk of transmission [ [25] , [26] , [27] , [28] ]. The healthcare capacity in South-West Europe was considered to be high, but even then, high numbers of COVID-19 cases were reported in these regions.…”

Multi-Objective Optimization of Integrated Civilian-Military Scheduling of Medical Supplies for Epidemic Prevention and Control

“…Under emergency situations, they can provide an effective supplement to the shortage of civilian medical services [ 6 ]. However, scheduling medical supplies from military medical services to civilian medical services in a large-scale epidemics has the following difficulties: There us often a large number of civilian medical services that are distributed in wide areas, and the shortage of medical supplies is often acute [ 7 , 8 ]; however, the number of military medical services and amount of supplies that they can provide are often limited. Using military medical services to support civilian medical services involes not only scheduling medical supplies from the former to the latter, but also scheduling patients from the latter to the former.…”

“…There us often a large number of civilian medical services that are distributed in wide areas, and the shortage of medical supplies is often acute [ 7 , 8 ]; however, the number of military medical services and amount of supplies that they can provide are often limited.…”