Research On The Demand And Influencing Factors Of Medical And Health Services For Middle-aged And Old People In Rural Areas

Public health is the foundation of people’s livelihood.It is an inevitable requirement of China’s socialist modernization drive to improve the health level of all the people and realize a medical and health system in which "everyone enjoys basic medical and health services".However,the absolute number of the elderly in China is large,the development trend is rapid,the degree of population aging is rapidly deepening.According to the public data released by the national bureau of statistics,in 2017,240.9 million people aged 60 and above were in China,accounting for 17.3 percent of the total population,among whom158.31 million were aged 65 and above,accounting for 11.4 percent of the total population.At the same time,a large number of young rural labor force to urban development,resulting in an increasing number of rural elderly population,especially the empty-nesters and the elderly living alone in the majority.The increasingly serious aging in rural areas leads to the increasing demand for medical and health services for the elderly in rural areas,which makes the rural medical and health services with poor conditions and backward development more and more inadequate.Therefore,it is urgent to improve the medical and health services for the elderly in rural areas.It is an important link to develop rural medical and health services more effectively to make clear the characteristics and influencing factors of the demand for medical and health services for the middle-aged and the elderly in rural areas.Medical and health service demand refers to people’s subjective judgment on whether they are healthy,sick or need medical treatment or the amount of medical services that must be implemented according to the doctor’s diagnosis.Based on this concept,this study is based on the mixed cross-sectional data of China health and old-age care tracking survey(CHARLS)database in 2011,2013 and 2015,and mainly USES the method of combining normative analysis and empirical analysis to study the characteristics and influencing factors of medical and health service demand of middle-aged and elderly people in rural areas.Firstly,through literature review and theoretical research,a theoretical analysis framework of influencing factors of medical and health service demand of rural middle-aged and elderly population was constructed.Secondly,it is necessary to understand the current situation of medical and health service demand of the middle and old people in rural areas,summarize the characteristics of medical and health service demand of the middle and old people,and discuss the important significance of medical and health service for the middle and old people in rural areas.Thirdly,through empirical analysis,the author finds out the important factors affecting the medical and health service demand of the elderly population in rural areas,and draws the research conclusion.Finally,on the basis of the above research conclusion,analyzes the facing problems in the development of the rural elderly group health and coping methods,so as to the government and the medical and health institutions for the elderly in rural areas to improve and enhance the health of the policies and measures to provide the basis,for the elderly in rural areas to make contribution to the development of medical and health services.The research found that: the health status of the elderly in rural areas is poor,the number of people suffering from chronic diseases such as hypertension,dyslipidemia or hyperglycemia is large,the treatment rate after the disease is low,the phenomenon that should be hospitalized is less,the overall amount of medical expenditure is low,the proportion of medical expenditure is low.The factors influencing the demand of medical and health services for the elderly in rural areas include individual characteristic variables,family characteristic variables and health security characteristic variables.Among them,the younger the age,the male the gender,the higher the educational level,the higher the family annual disposable income,the more family assets and the new rural cooperative medical insurance in the rural elderly,the better the health status of the self-assessment results;The younger they are,the more educated they are,the higher their annual income is,the more they hold a non-agricultural hukou and the more frequently they interact with friends,the less likely they are to suffer from chronic diseases.The younger they are,the more educated they are,the higher their annual income,the more they hold a non-agricultural household registration and the higher their household assets,the less likely they are to have fallen ill in the past month.The higher the education level,the cohabiting spouse,the higher the personal annual income,the more frequent the interaction with friends,and the annual disposable income of the family,the higher the probability that the elderly in rural areas will go to the hospital after illness.The higher the frequency of interaction with friends and the more family assets,the less likely it is for the elderly to be hospitalized in rural areas.The older they are,the more urban hukou they have,and the higher their family’s annual disposable income,the greater their medical expenses will be.The older the family is,the smaller the family size is,the higher the annual disposable income of the family is,and the more the family assets are.Without the new rural cooperative medical insurance,the larger the out-of-pocket proportion of medical expenses of the elderly in rural areas is.