Research On The Impact Of Mental Health Status Of The Elderly On Their Health Consumption

Since the reform and opening up,the consumption of medical care and health in China has been paid more and more attention.With the deepening of the degree of aging in China,the importance of silver consumption to the national economy has been increasingly highlighted.As an important part of the consumption structure of aging population,medical and health consumption has a broad development prospect.Among the medical and health consumption items,drugs,vitamins,supplements and health care equipment purchased by consumer themselves are characterized by low cost and strong autonomy and selectivity.Therefore,consumers' Mental health may have an important impact on their health consumption.But research shows that the Mental health state of China's elderly is not good.As more and more old people regard various health care products as one of the most important chooses of healthy life,the businessman of a few profitless heart makes use of old people's psychological weakness,tricking them to buy useless health products at high prices,which can make old people suffer economic loss and Mental injury at the same time.However,in the existing literature,Mental health is rarely considered as a factor influencing consumers' health expenditure.Chronic depression will prompt the elderly to seek effective ways to alleviate the pain caused by negative emotions,and increasing health consumption can be an important way for the elderly to alleviate the depression.Therefore,it is valuable to study the impact of Mental health on the health consumption of the elderly,improve their Mental health level,and guide the healthy development of health consumption of the elderly.Based on the national baseline survey data of CHARLS2015,this thesis studied the influence of the Mental health status of the elderly on their health consumption with the elderly Aged 60 and above in China as the research object and the degree of emotional depression as the proxy variable to measure the Mental health status of the elderly.The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that long-term depression can increase the healthy consumption of the elderly,and the healthy and social needs of the elderly may affect the positive effect of depression on their healthy consumption.Firstly,the survey data of CHARLS2015 depression scale were processed by principal component analysis method,and the comprehensive evaluation index of depression degree of the elderly was constructed as an indicator to measure the Mental health status of the elderly in this thesis.Secondly,on the basis of Grossman's medical consumption demand model,this thesis built the health consumption demand model for the elderly with health spending of the elderly as the dependent variable,the interpretation of the Mental health status as the main independent variable,and the body health,demographic characteristics,social and economic characteristics and family characteristics as control variables.Then,Tobit regression model was used to test the total effect of Mental health status on the health consumption expenditure of the elderly in China,and the endogenous problem of the model was eliminated by means of instrumental variable method.The results showed that the higher the level of depression,the greater the healthy consumption of the elderly.Cognitive ability and Education level have a significant positive effect on the health consumption of the elderly.Old people who engage in more social activities spend more on health.Further quantile regression results showed that depression had less effect on the high conditional distribution of health expenditure than on the middle and lower parts.The regression results of urban and rural samples showed that compared with the elderly living in rural areas,the elderly living in urban areas had a stronger effect of depression on their health consumption.Thirdly,the mechanism of action was analyzed from two perspectives:the need for health and the need for social interaction.Results showed that lower self-reported health status and less social engagement significantly enhanced the positive effect of depression on health spending of old people.Finally,policy suggestions were proposed based on the research results.In order to improve the Mental health of the elderly,we should fully consider the factors affecting the Mental health of the elderly;in addition,we should improve the quality audit system of healthy products and the supervision and management system of healthy consumption market to realize the benign operation of healthy consumption market.