Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to test whether improved healthcare services can mitigate health hazards resulting from environmental pollution in the urbanization process. Specifically, using China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data and official statistics, this paper constructs comprehensive urbanization indicators and healthcare service indicators by applying the fully arrayed polygonal graphical indication method. Then, we introduce healthcare service indicators, urbanization indicators, environmental pollution indicators, and the interaction term between environmental pollution and healthcare into an ordered-logistics regression model. Our results indicate that improvement in health conditions can decrease the health risks from multiplied emissions of industrial sulfur dioxide, industrial soot and dust, and industrial effluents, but it cannot counteract the adverse health effects of PM2.5. Furthermore, heterogeneity tests show that, when considering the multidimensionality of urbanization, the positive influence of healthcare is the greatest in residential surroundings urbanization and economic urbanization, which reduces the prevalence of chronic diseases by 18.4% and 14.9%, respectively. Among the diverse city types, mixed-economy cities have the most obvious positive effects, where healthcare has the greatest mitigating effect on the health damage caused by industrial sulfur dioxide and industrial soot and dust, decreasing the prevalence of chronic diseases among the middle-aged and elderly by 27.3% and 16.4%, respectively. When considering the regional impacts of urbanization, there is a large difference in the positive effects brought about by medical care, which is reflected mainly in eastern and western China. In eastern China, although healthcare does not offset the health damage of PM2.5, the increase in chronic diseases among the middle-aged and elderly is only 0.5%, while in western China, the increase rises to 22.4%.
Highlights
Since the 1990s, both the speed and scale of China’s urbanization have accelerated [1].During this period, the urbanization rate in China has increased rapidly from 30.48% to60.60%, an increase of nearly 31%
As expected, modeling results show industrial soot and dust having a significant negative effect on middle-aged and elderly people, but for industrial sulfur dioxide and wastewater, the results show positive effects for chronic disease, which is in disagreement with objective facts
The estimated results from these models indicate that the coefficients of the interaction terms for industrial sulfur dioxide, industrial soot and dust, and healthcare service are significantly negative, showing that the improvement of healthcare conditions can dramatically relieve the health risks to middle-aged and elderly people caused by increased industrial sulfur dioxide and industrial soot and dust
Summary
Since the 1990s, both the speed and scale of China’s urbanization have accelerated [1].During this period, the urbanization rate in China has increased rapidly from 30.48% to60.60%, an increase of nearly 31%. Since the 1990s, both the speed and scale of China’s urbanization have accelerated [1] During this period, the urbanization rate in China has increased rapidly from 30.48% to. It can be seen that, in several decades, China will have achieved the urbanization progress that occurred in western countries over hundreds of years [2] Such rapid urbanization growth poses large challenges to public health. Quick urbanization leads to serious problems of environmental pollution and unhealthy lifestyles [3] Among these problems, the most widespread impact has been on air pollution [4], for example, increased levels of industrial sulfur dioxide [5] and particulate matter (PM10 , PM2.5 ) pollution [6].
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