Classification and influencing factors of rural elderly's vulnerability to health-related poverty in central and western regions of China

Abstract

ObjectiveTo calculate the health poverty vulnerability index of elderly households in rural areas of central and western China, and then to classify these samples, lastly to decompose their influencing factors. MethodsFirst, based on survey data in 2018, the three-stage feasible generalized least squares was used to calculate the health poverty vulnerability index of elderly households, and then combined with whether the household income was below the poverty line and whether the family was healthy poverty vulnerability, the sample households were divided into four categories, and then used multiple unordered logistic regression to analyze various types of influencing factors, and finally used the Shapley index to decompose the contribution of each influencing factor. ResultsThe average vulnerability of health poverty was 0.5979 ± 0.25199, with 1169 households greater than or equal to 0.5, accounting for 63.26%; the number of households stuck in poverty, temporary poverty, potential poverty, and escaped from poverty were 489, 300, 680, and 379 households, accounting for 26.46%, 16.23%, 36.80%, and 20.51% of the total sample; compared with escaped from poverty families, the three variables of marital status, the number of chronically ill patients, and the number of annual hospitalizations were the common influencing factors of other three types families; The Shapley decomposition showed that the interviewees’ education level and family members engaged in non-agricultural work have contributed significantly to the three types, however two indicators: time required to visit a medical institution and self-assessment of health status of the main interviewees showed great differences in different types of families. ConclusionRural elderly households have a high level of vulnerability to health poverty; potential poverty households and persistent poverty households account for a large proportion, and continuous intervention should be carried out; it is necessary to unify the implementation of basic poverty alleviation work, but also to enhance refined management capabilities and adopt differentiated intervention measures.