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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1577963
This article is part of the Research Topic Public Health Outcomes: The Role of Social Security Systems in Improving Residents' Health Welfare View all 15 articles
Fiscal Transfers and Public Health Services in China: A Macro-Micro Analysis
Provisionally accepted- 1 Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong, China
- 2 Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 3 Sichuan Lanxin Urban and Rural Community Construction Research Center, Chengdu City, China
- 4 Sichuan Polytechnic University, Deyang, China
This paper develops an evaluation system for public health service indicators focusing on both function and capacity. Using data from 1,871 districts and counties spanning 2001 to 2020, along with structural equation modeling and fuzzy evaluation methods, we measure the level of public health services. Additionally, we analyze the impact of transfer payments on public health services by utilizing panel data from 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2001 to 2020. Our results indicate that a 1% increase in transfer payments results in a 0.007% improvement in public health service levels. Additionally, we find that transfer payments enhance public health services primarily by influencing fiscal expenditure priorities and increasing the efficiency of health spending. Transfer payments also contribute to improving population health and reducing health inequality at the micro level.
Keywords: fiscal transfers, public health service levels, Fiscal spending bias, fiscal health spending efficiency, Fiscal gap
Received: 17 Feb 2025; Accepted: 25 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tu, Yan, Wang and Zheng. 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:
Xunhua Tu, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong, China
Jing Zheng, Sichuan Polytechnic University, Deyang, 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.