Abstract
Health equity is significant for social sustainability and the Chinese government is trying to achieve the goals of “universal access to basic health care services”. As the comprehensive carrier of health care services, hospitals are almost the most important health care resources and their regional maldistribution needs to give a special concern for health justice and social sustainability. This study aims to explore regional maldistribution of various hospitals through constructing, decomposing and calculating per capita hospitals Gini Coefficient based on the unique structural system of China’s hospitals from 2003–2014. Results show that: (1) the level of regional maldistribution of hospitals in China is not too serious in terms of quantity and there is a slight decline in recent years; (2) regional maldistribution of hospitals is mainly from General Hospitals and in inland areas; and (3) the slight decrease of regional maldistribution is mainly caused by Concentration Effect and increased per capita hospitals. Based on empirical results and the reality of China, some targeted policy suggestions are proposed to reduce regional maldistribution of hospitals and promote health equity for social sustainable development.
Highlights
Social sustainability is a comprehensive concept that covers equity, safety, eco-prosumption and urban forms [1], of which equity is the most known representative of social dimensions within the study on sustainability [2], and achievement of equity or justice has already become one of the top goals in sustainable development of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda [3,4]
Gini Coefficient of hospitals is mainly contributed by General Hospitals and their contribution rate (CR) is always about 70%, which indicates that General Hospitals are the main source of RMH in China
Decomposing Gini Coefficient by inland and coastal areas, this study discovers that RMH is mainly derived from inland areas and maldistribution within inland areas is more serious
Summary
Social sustainability is a comprehensive concept that covers equity, safety, eco-prosumption and urban forms [1], of which equity is the most known representative of social dimensions within the study on sustainability [2], and achievement of equity or justice has already become one of the top goals in sustainable development of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda [3,4]. Most public service resources are strongly concentrated in well-developed regions, especially big cities, while fewer resources are allocated in the western inland and underdeveloped regions [9,10,11] Faced with this situation, which could lead to greater social conflicts, the Chinese government is committed to changing the phenomenon and the conception of “basic public service equalization” was put forward in the sixth plenum of the 16th Communist Party of China Central Committee in 2006. Health Systems: Improving Performance by World Health Organization (WHO) [16], China is ranked 188 out of 191 countries with regard to the equality of health [17] To change this situation, which threatens social sustainable development, the conception of “universal access to basic healthcare services” was put forward by the Communist Party of China during its 17th National Congress in 2007, which made it clear this is the goal of China’s healthcare development
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