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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1425716
This article is part of the Research Topic Reviews in Public Health Expenditure and Performance View all 17 articles

Analysis of the Structure and Trend Prediction of China's Total Health Expenditure

Provisionally accepted
Hongyan Li Hongyan Li Rui-xue Zhang Rui-xue Zhang *
  • Shanghai University of Engineering Sciences, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: In the context of rapid economic and social development, there has been a continuous intensification of population aging, transformation of disease patterns, and wide application of new medical technologies. As a result, health expenditures in various countries have sharply soared. How to utilize limited medical resources to maximize the improvement of health levels has become a hot and challenging issue related to the well-being of all humanity. The relevant indicators of total health expenditure play a crucial role in monitoring and evaluating the fairness of health financing and health security in the region.Objective: This study explores the changes in the main expenses that constitute China's total health expenditure and uses indicators related to health expenditure to observe the changes and future development trends of China's health expenditure. Based on this, the utilization of China's health expenditure is monitored to identify possible problems, and thereby targeted suggestions for promoting the development of China's health and wellness cause are put forward.Methods: Based on the comparison of previous literature, this paper analyzes the changes and future development trends in China's health expenditure by using the relevant indicators of China's health expenditure through the structural variation analysis method and the grey prediction model.The results show that the scale of government, social, and out-of-pocket health expenditures has continuously expanded, with social health expenditures becoming the main funding source for total health expenditures. The burden of medical expenditures on individuals has been further reduced. In the institutional method of total health expenditures, hospital expenditures account for about 60% of the total and are the main component. The expenditures of health administration and medical insurance management institutions are the main driving force behind the growth of total health expenditures. However, the proportion of health expenditures in China's GDP is relatively low, so more investment is needed in the healthcare sector, and the burden of individual medical expenses also needs to be continuously reduced.

    Keywords: Total health expenditure, trend predicition, China, structural variation, Grey prediction model, residents' medical burdens

    Received: 30 Apr 2024; Accepted: 27 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Li and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rui-xue Zhang, Shanghai University of Engineering Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.