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KMID : 1011120150090010127
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Bioethics Policy Studies
2015 Volume.9 No. 1 p.127 ~ p.159
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Causes of Differences in Health Outcomes Between Tibet and Heilongjing in China
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Xu Xin
Kang Min-Ah
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Abstract
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Residents in Tibet Autonomous region are known to have significantly low health status compared to other regional areas in China. In this study, to understand reason for this disparity in health status between Tibet and other areas, we compared Tibet with Heilongjing Province in terms of three representative health indicators, namely life expectancy, child mortality and maternal mortality. Heilongjing Province was selected as the region’s economic status is similar to that of Tibetan region, but the health status was significantly higher than Tibet region.
Our analysis showed that, while Tibet region has a similar level of economic development, it has worse condition for healthy lives for the residents. Residents in Tibet region had worse access to health care service, lower utilization, lower education and health literacy level. At the same time, Tibetan were less involved in healthy life style. They were more likely to smoke and less likely to do exercise than residents in Heilongjing Province. Most critically, Heilongjing government was shown to put more serious effort to improve and maintain health of the residents, using various government policy that prohibits unhealthy behaviors and to promote access to health care service. Overall, this finding implies that, to promote health status of residents, higher health expenditure nor better economy was not sufficient. More active intervention by government should be developed and implemented.
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KEYWORD
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regional health difference, health disparity, determinants of health, government health policy tool
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