Author(s)

Le Yang, Hongman Wang

Corresponding Author

Hongman Wang

ABSTRACT

Objective: Health material plays important role in people’s health pretection and promotion, especially the hospitals and primary health institutions. The unsatisfactory equality in health resource allocation is common in China and many developing countries, even in some developed countries. This paper aimed at evaluating and discussing the equality in health institutions allocation in Beijing, China. Data sources/study setting: The data was collected from 16 districts of Beijing, not including the military hospitals. For government planning purposes and the functional difference, the 16 districts were divided into four divisions in this paper. Data collection/extraction methods: In this study, we evaluated and measured the equality in health institutions allocation in Beijing, extracting data from Beijing Regional Statistical Yearbook 2017. We used the methods of Lorenz Curve, Gini coefficient and Theil L index to measure the equality at within and between the divisions. Principal findings: As the population density, the Gini coefficient for all health institutions was 0.21, for hospital was 0.11, and for primary health center was 0.17, showing perfectly equitable. But there was less equality in the density of geographical area. Compared with all health institutions and primary health center, hospital allocation was less equitable. The Thiel L index showed the inequalities of hospital allocation were mainly from the four divisions. Conclusions: The results showed that the health institutions allocation in Beijing was perfectly equitable in population size, but imbalanced in geographical area size. All health institutions and primary health center were geneally equitable in the allocation in Beijing, but hospital allocation should be paid more attention. Governments needed to think more carefully about current distribution of health institutions, especially the hospital, at both the sub-provincial level and provincial level.

KEYWORDS

Health material, equality, Beijing, Gini coefficient, Theil L index