Human Capital Health Research Articles

The Toilet Revolution Empowers Rural Revitalization based on a Health Perspective

Since the reform and opening up, with the rapid development of the Chinese economy, public health problems have become increasingly serious. At the same time, due to the reality of imbalanced urban-rural development in China, improving the living environment in rural areas is the key and difficult point to achieve rural revitalization. Therefore, in 2015, the Chinese government officially began the "Toilet Revolution", a national public health movement aimed at improving urban and rural public health problems, enhancing people's quality of life, promoting rural economic development, and further promoting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy. Based on a health perspective, this article analyzes the impact of the "toilet revolution" on rural health human capital by reviewing existing data and literature such as the "China Statistical Yearbook" on the level of health service expenditure and the number of sanitary toilet constructions. It further elucidates the mechanism by which the "toilet revolution" empowers rural revitalization, providing a theoretical basis for the government to deepen the "toilet revolution", narrow the urban-rural gap, and promote rural revitalization.

Will the situation of Left-Behind children improve when their parents Return? evidence from China

Based on Grossman’s (1972) health model and Becker and Tomes’ (1979, 1986) cognitive ability family decision-making model, this study examines the impact and mechanisms of children’s left-behind status and parental return on the accumulation of children’s health and cognitive human capital. By extending these models, we derive that changes in left-behind status have both income and separation effects on children’s human capital accumulation. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we employ a Propensity Score Matching with Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) model to investigate the impact of changes in left-behind status (either remaining left-behind or experiencing parental return) on children’s human capital accumulation. The research findings reveal the following: (1) Compared to non-left-behind children, left-behind status significantly decreases children’s health levels by 11.81%. In contrast, parental return significantly improves children’s health levels by 13.04% compared to children whose parents are away. All results are statistically significant. (2) The negative impact of left-behind status is more pronounced for primary school children, those residing in rural areas, and those with parents of lower educational levels, especially in western regions. In contrast, parental return has a more substantial positive impact on junior high school children, those living in rural areas, and those with parents of lower educational levels, particularly in western regions. (3) When analyzing the impact mechanisms, we find that although parental migration for work increases household income, leading to a positive income effect on children’s health, it does not fully offset the negative separation effect caused by parental absence. As a result, the overall effect remains negative. Based on these findings, for migrant worker parents, we propose tiered recommendations: ideally, parents should return home; alternatively, children should follow their parents. For the government, we suggest establishing comprehensive service centers for left-behind children based on actual needs. We recommend designing a holistic plan aimed at addressing the health issues of left-behind children through multi-level support measures.

Measurement of health human capital and its economic effect in China

Improving individual health not only enhances labor productivity but also boosts the productivity of society as a whole. China’s economic development is in urgent need of transitioning from being driven by factors to being driven by innovation, which places higher demands on Health Human Capital (HHC). An evaluation system consisting of 18 indicators across four dimensions—basic health, preventive healthcare, medical resources, quality, and healthy environment—was used to calculate the HHC index of 31 provinces and cities in China from 2005 to 2019 using the entropy method. Following that, this study assessed the influence of HHC on economic growth using endogenous growth theory and the Corgis production function. Firstly, we discovered that the level of home healthcare services in China is on a steady incline, with eastern China showing better results compared to western and northeastern regions. Secondly, enhancing HHC will lead to a rise in the local real per capita GDP and foster economic growth, although there may be regional disparities. Thirdly, provinces with a higher level of economic development exhibit a more significant promoting effect, with southern China showing a greater impact than northern China. China should continue to prioritize both efficiency and equity in the allocation of medical and health resources, while also working to reduce the disparities in HHC development among different regions.

Analysis of the Role of Human Capital on Economic Growth in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei

Abstract This paper uses some human capital related data in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as empirical data to study the impact of human capital on the economic growth of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region; based on the selected data, the principal component analysis method is used to analyze health human capital, education human capital, and comprehensive human capital. Measure and compare the human capital differences of the three places in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. Finally, based on the economic growth model, the three places are regression analysis, and the results of different types of human capital on the three places are obtained. The analysis results show that different types of human capital measurement values in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region are indeed different. In general, the human capital in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region contributes more to economic growth than physical capital, and the contribution of health human capital is better than that of education human capital. Keywords: Human capital, Economic growth, Regression analysis, Principal component analysis, Health; Education.

Discussion on the Relationship Between Chinese Government’s Investment in Health Human Capital and Economic Growth

AbstractIn the past decade, the Chinese government has been facing a series of economic difficulties. The policies introduced by the Chinese government not only aim to maintain economic growth but also to achieve stable monetary and fiscal policies. In addition, the three-year pandemic has put greater financial pressure on the Chinese government. However, these efforts are all worthwhile; the Chinese government has not only ensured the health and interests of the Chinese people but also ensured stable economic growth in the region. We aim to study the relationship between Chinese government investment in health human capital and economic growth, using threshold effect models and instrumental variable methods to conduct empirical research on 26 provinces in Mainland China. The results show that, firstly, increasing government investment in health human capital can promote regional economic growth and exhibit a decreasing trend; secondly, there are differences in the influencing factors of government health investment on economic growth among different regions. From this, it can be seen that the government should formulate more scientific and reasonable government investment in health human capital policies based on factors, such as aging degree, residents’ health level, economic structure, and population size in different regions, to alleviate the pressure on government investment in health human capital and promote regional economic growth.

Research on the impact of human capital on economic growth in China 's provinces based on panel data model

Because human capital can promote economic development, promote social progress and achieve sustainable development, it plays an important role in Chinese modernization. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the impact of human capital on economic growth. This paper first constructs the index system, and uses the Topsis entropy weight method to comprehensively score the indicators ; then, a 25-year panel data model of 31 provinces ( cities ) in China from 1997 to 2021 is established. Through F test, Breusch-Pagan test and Hausman test, a variety of panel data models are selected. It is found that the individual time point double fixed effect model has a good regression fitting effect on the relevant data. Therefore, this model is selected to analyze the impact of education human capital and health human capital on economic growth, and it is found that both education human capital and health human capital have a significant role in promoting economic growth, but the role of education human capital is more obvious. When education human capital changes 1 unit, China 's economic growth will change 0.105 units. When health human capital changes 1 unit, China 's economic growth will change 0.09 units.

Research on the Evaluation and Enhancement Strategies of College Students’ Health Human Capital in “Healthy Hunan” under the Background of Big Data

Abstract This paper precisely explores the structure and characteristics of college students’ healthy human capital and its influencing factors. It aims to enhance students’ positive and healthy mindset and promote optimism in life and learning. A solid analytical framework is constructed by sorting out the ordered multicategorical logistic regression model and parameter estimation methods and the application steps of the propensity score matching model. College students from ten colleges and universities in Hunan Province were selected as research subjects, and a questionnaire was designed to assess their healthy human capital. The specific factors affecting college students’ healthy human capital accumulation were analyzed in depth through the probability density analysis of propensity score matching, standard support hypothesis testing, and the parallel line test and regression results of the ordered multicategorical regression model. The findings show that the curves of the experimental and control groups after propensity score matching almost overlap in the [0.2,0.4] interval, indicating the method’s validity. A more important finding is that the number of college students with poor self-assessed physical health is 8.063 times higher than that of college students with self-assessed mental health as good, which emphasizes the significant impact of mental health on healthy human capital. Therefore, to effectively improve the health human capital of college students, students, families and universities must form a linkage mechanism and work together to cultivate college students’ health awareness.

Social housing stigma in Toronto: Identifying asymmetries between stereotypes and statistical actualities of health, crime, and human capital

AbstractResearch on social housing stigma has proliferated due to growing concern over the effects of territorial stigmatization. The stereotyping of social housing as a site of ill‐health, criminality, and low human capital stems from empirically ambiguous narratives created and recirculated through popular modes (e.g., social media platforms, news coverage). This paper combines principal component analysis, k‐means cluster analysis, and geographic information systems to create and visualize clusters denoting different levels of health, crime, human capital, and dwelling composition in the city of Toronto, Canada. The quantitative research design allows for the identification of “asymmetries,” which are census tracts or neighbourhoods assigned to clusters indicative of high social housing density, and one of either sound health, low crime, or high human capital. The results reveal a spatial patterning of asymmetries in the inner city West End and Downtown, and in inner suburban North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough. Overall, the paper illustrates the need to assess the empirical foundations of social housing stereotypes. Critically assessing stereotypes is important as they belie the rationale for social housing residents' living situations; pathologizes their identity, behaviour, and home; and generates public support for neoliberal solutions that displace long‐term residents from their communities.

Long-term effects of child nutritional status on the accumulation of health human capital

Research on the impact of childhood nutrition on adult health and human capital has been extensively studied in developed countries, but research in China on this topic is limited. Nowadays, for children's nutritional status, while significant progress has been made in addressing childhood undernutrition in China, regional disparities persist, conversely, the prevalence of childhood overweight continues to rise. For adults' health human capital, the burden of chronic non-communicable diseases among Chinese residents is gradually increasing, over 50% of Chinese residents are overweight or obese, with obesity being one of the risk factors for other chronic diseases. Therefore, this study uses national representative data from 1991 to 2015 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), matched with individual information from their childhood, to examine the relationship between childhood nutrition and adult health human capital. Based on the two-way fixed effects models and logit models, the study finds that childhood nutrition status measured by height-for-age z score (HAZ) significantly and continuously has been influencing adult health human capital measured by height, BMI, self-rated health (SRH), whether have been sick in last four weeks (SH). BMI-for-age z score (BMIZ) significantly and continuously influence adult health human capital measured by BMI, blood pressure, and perceived stress (PS). Among that, this study places special emphasis on the long-lasting effects of late childhood and adolescence (ages exceeding 6) on the progressive height accumulation and sustained presence of elevated blood pressure. In conclusion, reducing childhood overweight and promoting linear growth and development throughout the whole childhood can reduce the future burden of disease on the nation.

Health Expenditures, Human Capital, and Sustainable Development: Panel Evidence from the New EU Member Countries

Both health and human capital are simultaneously resources and indicators of sustainable development. Therefore, this research article studies the causal interaction among total health expenditures, out-of-pocket expenditures, human capital, and sustainable development in eleven EU member countries during 2000–2020 through the panel causality test. The result of the causality test indicates that indicators of health expenditures, human capital, and sustainable development are closely interrelated, but the causal interaction among indicators of health expenditures, human capital, and sustainable development differs among the new EU members. On the one hand, health expenditures and human capital are significant factors underlying sustainable development. On the other hand, sustainable development is a significant determinant of health expenditures and human capital. Considering the significant role of human capital for sustainable development, education and training programs should especially be revised in a way to improve the sustainability and healthy life awareness and qualifications of the individuals. Furthermore, the digital transformation of health systems from both supply and demand sides should be supported by public health policies.

Health human capital formation in the OECD: Exploring the role of welfare state composition

AbstractThis study examines the relationship between welfare state or social expenditure composition and health human capital in 37 OECD countries spanning 1980–2018. Our findings confirm that public health spending has a positive effect on health capital formation. Dissecting social expenditure according to other nine social spending categories reveals a positive influence for old age pensions and unemployment benefits. The results for the remaining social programs vary with the health capital proxy and estimation method used. It thus appears that more comprehensive and universal social programs, possibly by guaranteeing the necessary income, do a better job in improving health human capital.

Asymmetric Effects of Human Health Capital on Economic Growth in China: An Empirical Investigation Based on the NARDL Model

Human health capital is an important factor that affects countries’ economic development. This research explores the nonlinear effect of human health capital on economic growth and assesses the asymmetry over time. We used annual data from 1978 to 2021 in China and the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model to examine the long- and short-term effects of positive and negative human health capital shocks on economic growth. Human health capital is measured by personal health expenditure (PHE), government health expenditure (GHE), and social service expenditure (SSE). A reduction of one unit in short-term private health expenditure leads to a 7.48% decrease in GDP per capita. An increase in private health expenditure leads to an increase in GDP per capita of 3.51%. The positive (βPHE+) and negative (βPHE−) coefficients of change in long-term private health expenditure are 1.31 and 3.87, respectively. A reduction in short-term government expenditure on health leads to a 10.99% decline in GDP per capita. The positive (βGHE+) and negative (βGHE−) coefficients of long-term government health expenditure are −4.33 and 1.99, respectively. A one-unit reduction in short-term social service spending leads to a 5.56 percent drop in GDP per capita, while an increase in social service expenditure leads to a 5.97 percent increase in GDP per capita. The positive (βSSE+) and negative (βSSE−) coefficients of change in long-term social service expenditure are 5.76 and 4.62, respectively. Both private health expenditure and government health expenditure have shown significant asymmetry in their long- and short-term effects on economic growth. Human health capital that is rationally distributed can effectively enhance economic growth.

Internet Use and the Happiness of Rural Residents: The Role of Education and Health.

The rapid development of the Internet in China in recent years has greatly penetrated into all aspects of people's lives and production. In rural areas of China, little is known from previous studies about the relationship between the Internet and happiness. Based on data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) collected in 2016 and 2018, this study investigates the impact of the Internet use on the happiness of rural residents and its mechanism. The results show that, first, the fixed-effects model indicates that the Internet significantly increases the happiness of rural residents. Second, the multiple mediating effects analysis shows that Internet use can improve rural residents' happiness by promoting the household education human capital. To be more specific, excessive Internet use leads to lower levels of household health human capital. However, a lower level of health does not necessarily bring about a lower level of happiness. In this paper, the mediating effects of household education human capital and household health human capital are 17.8% and 9.5%, respectively. Third, the heterogeneity analysis found that there was a significant positive correlation between Internet use and rural residents' happiness in western regions of China, while it is insignificant in the eastern and central regions; for households with a huge labor force, Internet use dramatically improves their happiness by enhancing their household education human capital. Education and health have different roles to play in terms of the happiness of rural residents. Therefore, this suggests that the physical and psychological health of rural residents should be taken into account when the Internet strategies to improve general well-being are under development.

The impact of social pension scheme on the quality of labor supply: empirical evidence based on health human capital

PurposeHigh-quality labor supply is inevitable to maintain sustainable and steady economic growth. This study mainly explores the impact of the social pension system on the health of human capital, and further explores its impact mechanism.Design/methodology/approachOn the basis of the data from China Family Panel Studies from 2012 to 2018, this article uses the fixed effect model and the mediation effect model to empirically study the influence of the social pension scheme on the health of human capital and further explore its influence mechanism.FindingsThis study shows that the social pension scheme can significantly improve the physical and mental health of laborers, especially for low-income and agricultural groups. The implementation of the social pension scheme contributes to increasing medical services and reducing the labor supply for the benefit of human health capital. Therefore, the government should continue to expand the coverage of the social pension scheme and comprehensively improve the importance of human health capital on economic growth.Practical implicationsMedical costs and labor supply play a mediating effect in the relationship between social pension and rural labors' health status, which indicates that medical costs and labor supply level are still important factors affecting the health status of rural labor. There are essential factors affecting the health status of the rural labor force, and their role should be given more consideration in the process of system design and improvement.Originality/valueThe existing studies have more frequently studied the effect of the implementation of social pension schemes from the perspective of economic performance, but this paper evaluates the policy effect of social pension schemes based on the perspective of health human capital, which enriches research on health performance in related fields.

Transportation Infrastructure, Population Mobility, and Public Health.

This paper constructs an overlapping generations model, including health human capital, to investigate the impact of transportation investment on public health with population mobility. The theoretical analysis shows that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between transportation infrastructure and population flow, which also exists between transportation and health. Health is affected by transportation from three aspects: positive output effect, negative substitution effect on public health investment, and an indirect effect through population flow. In the empirical part, considered with the infectious diseases, we found that the more intensive the traffic facilities, the greater the population flow, and therefore, the traffic facilities will have a negative impact on health. When population mortality is used to measure the level of public health, transportation improvement will significantly enhance public health with an inverted U-shaped relationship, which is consistent with the theoretical portion.

Public Health Services, Health Human Capital, and Relative Poverty of Rural Families.

With the successful completion of the battle against poverty, after 2020, the focus and difficulty of China’s poverty governance will change from solving absolute poverty to alleviating relative poverty. Analyzing and studying the alleviation of relative poverty from the perspective of public health services is in line with the current needs of consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation in China, and it is also of great significance to building a long-term solution mechanism for relative poverty. In this study, basic panel data were constructed by using the data of five CFPS surveys in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 and matched with the macro data. The correlation between public health services and rural households’ relative poverty was also analyzed by using logit regression analysis and the KHB mediation effect decomposition method. The results show that (1) public health services play a significant role in promoting the accumulation of health human capital, improving individual feasible ability, and alleviating the relative poverty of rural families; (2) the improvement of public health services is conducive to the alleviation of the relative poverty of rural families; (3) we should continue to increase investment in public health care in underdeveloped areas and strive to promote the balanced development of public health services, so as to further consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty eradication.

Low Socioeconomic Status Is Associated with a Greater Neural Response to Both Rewards and Losses.

Low socioeconomic status (SES) has been associated with distinct patterns of reward processing, which appear to have adverse implications for health outcomes, well-being, and human capital. However, most studies in this literature have used complex tasks that engage more than reward processing and/or retrospectively studied childhood SES in samples of adults. To clarify how SES relates to the development of reward processing tendencies, we measured income-to-poverty ratio (IPR) in 172 youth who subsequently underwent functional MRI while completing a passive avoidance task to assess neural responses to reward and loss information. Participants were 12-15 years old (mean = 13.94, SD = .52; 65.7% female) from a sample broadly representative of the Chicago area in terms of SES (IPR range = 0.1-34.53; mean = 3.90; SD = 4.15) and racial makeup (40.1% White 30.8% Black; 29.1% Hispanic). To the extent they had lower IPR, children displayed a trend toward worse behavioral performance on the passive avoidance task. Lower IPR also was associated with a greater response in attention brain regions to reward and loss cues and to reward and loss feedback. Lower IPR also was associated with reduced differentiation between reward and loss feedback in the ventromedial prefrontal and parietal cortex. The current data suggest that both increased salience of reward/loss information and reduced discrimination between reward and loss feedback could be factors linking SES with the development of human capital and health outcomes.

Research on the Influencing Factors of the Complexity of Medical Device Export Technology

In this paper, the data from “international trade center” is used to calculate the technical complexity index of the representative sample countries of medical device trade, and the transnational panel data model is used to compare the influencing factors of the technical complexity of the developed and developing countries of the sample countries. The results showed that: 1) health expenditure, human capital, R & D investment and foreign investment all have a positive impact on the export technology content of medical devices, of which health expenditure and human capital had a greater impact; 2) the aging of natural resources and population have a negative impact on both developed and developing countries; 3) import trade has a stable positive impact on developed countries, but has no significant impact on developing countries; 4) population size has a stable positive impact on medical device products in developed countries, but has a negative impact on developing countries. Finally, this paper gives some suggestions to improve the export technology level of medical device products in developing countries based on multi-dimensional empirical analysis.

Politicians' In-Utero Health Shocks, Human Capital, Preferences, and Career and Governance Outcomes: The Case of City Party Secretaries in China

Politicians' In-Utero Health Shocks, Human Capital, Preferences, and Career and Governance Outcomes: The Case of City Party Secretaries in China

What Sets Physically Active Rural Communities Apart from Less Active Ones? A Comparative Case Study of Three US Counties.

Background: Rural US communities experience health disparities, including a lower prevalence of physical activity (PA). However, “Positive Deviants”—rural communities with greater PA than their peers—exist. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that help create physically active rural US communities. Methods: Stakeholder interviews, on-site intercept interviews, and in-person observations were used to form a comparative case study of two rural counties with high PA prevalence (HPAs) and one with low PA prevalence (LPA) from a southern US state, selected based on rurality and adult PA prevalence. Interview transcripts were inductively coded by three readers, resulting in a thematic structure that aligned with a Community Capital Framework, which was then used for deductive coding and analysis. Results: Fifteen stakeholder interviews, nine intercept interviews, and on-site observations were conducted. Human and Organizational Capital differed between the HPAs and LPA, manifesting as Social, Built, Financial, and Political Capital differences and a possible “spiraling-up” or cyclical effect through increasing PA and health (Human Capital), highlighting a potential causal model for future study. Conclusions: Multi-organizational PA coalitions may hold promise for rural PA by directly influencing Human and Organizational Capital in the short term and the other forms of capital in the long term.