Citation

Jiang Y, Zheng H, Zhao T. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019; 16(2): e16020215.

Affiliation

School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China. zhaotianhaobuaasem@163.com.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph16020215

PMID

30646540

Abstract

Previous studies have shown there are no consistent and robust associations between socioeconomic status and morbidity rates. This study focuses on the relationship between the socioeconomic status and the morbidity rates in China, which helps to add new evidence for the fragmentary relationship between socioeconomic status and morbidity rates. The National Health Services Survey (NHSS) and China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data are used to examine whether the association holds in both all-age cohorts and in older only cohorts. Three morbidity outcomes (two-week incidence rate, the prevalence of chronic diseases, and the number of sick days per thousand people) and two socioeconomic status indicators (income and education) are mainly examined. The results indicate that there are quadratic relationships between income per capita and morbidities. This non-linear correlation is similar to the patterns in European countries. Meanwhile, there is no association between education years and the morbidity in China, i.e., either two-week incidence rate or prevalence rate of chronic diseases has no statistically significant relationship with the education level in China.

Language: en

Keywords

number of sick days per thousand people; prevalence of chronic diseases; socioeconomic Status; two-week incidence rate