Economic Costs of Serious Illness in Rural Southwest China: Household Coping Strategies and Health Policy Implications

Abstract

Today, some 10 million Chinese peasants fall below China's official poverty line annually because of illness. Currently, more than 80 percent of China's rural residents do not have any health insurance, and most of those who do still have to pay up to 90 percent of their medical costs. Despite the grave situation, very little is known about the strategies rural Chinese utilize to cope with the economic costs of illness. In this paper, I examine how households in a rural village in Southwest China contend with economic impacts of serious illness, and I discuss how development agencies can help to alleviate the situation. I first describe the study site and my research methods. Next, drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, I analyze 10 strategies rural households use to cope with the economic costs of serious illness. In the last section, I discuss the implications of this case study for health policy makers and development agencies in China and elsewhere in the developing world.