Abstract
BackgroundUnderstanding the health status of the poor households and the influence of unhealthy on their income can provide some vital insights into the effectiveness and appropriateness of poverty reduction solutions.MethodsBased on a nationwide cross-sectional survey of 29,712 rural poor households, this study systematically investigated the causes of poverty and health status of Chinese rural poor households, and revealed the relationship between health, income and poverty.ResultsThe health status of the rural poor in China is not optimistic, with 51.63% attributing their poverty to the illness of household members. NCDs are the biggest health threat to the rural poor in China. Over 60% of all the households have at least one patient and more than a quarter of the households with patients cannot afford expensive medical expenses. Although 98% of all the households participate in China’s a rural health insurance system - the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme - 16% are still unable to bear their medical expenses after reimbursement from the scheme. Further, high altitude, ill-health and low-income are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. The per capita net income of poor households was inversely proportional to the altitude of their places of residence, family aging and unhealthy status, but was positively correlated with the number of workforces in their families.ConclusionsPoverty due to illness is one of the root causes of rural poverty in China. With the backward medical infrastructure in high altitude areas, people are more prone to fall into the vicious circle of poverty-unhealthy-low income-poverty. The establishment of effective long-term mechanism of disease prevention and intervention is an important prerequisite to enhance the endogenous development power of the poor and reduce poverty.
Highlights
Poverty and ill-health are generally believed to be have a bidirectional causality relationship [1,2,3], and poverty-led diseases disproportionately affect extremely poor populations and contribute to a vicious cycle of poverty because of decreased productivity led by long-term illness and disability (Fig. 1) [4,5,6]
It is vital and necessary to understand the health status of the rural poor in China and the mechanism of how the poor lead the farmers into poverty. To this end, based on nationwide health and socioeconomic survey data for poor households, this study investigated the cause of poverty, health status of poor households and assessed the impact of ill-health to farmers’ income in rural China
Based on the data from nationwide cross-sectional survey, our analysis indicates that illness is the major cause of rural poverty in China
Summary
Poverty and ill-health are generally believed to be have a bidirectional causality relationship [1,2,3], and poverty-led diseases disproportionately affect extremely poor populations and contribute to a vicious cycle of poverty because of decreased productivity led by long-term illness and disability (Fig. 1) [4,5,6]. Extensive studies have focused on the health-poverty nexus [2, 4], disease-driven poverty trap [17, 18], poverty and ill-health vicious cycle [19], ecosystem-poverty-health interaction [20] and medical poverty trap [21]. Most studies only explore the relationship between poverty and ill-health, few reveal the health-income-place nexus of the poor. Understanding the health status of the poor households and the influence of unhealthy on their income can provide some vital insights into the effectiveness and appropriateness of poverty reduction solutions
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