ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1559856
This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Outcomes: The Role of Social Security Systems in Improving Residents' Health Welfare, Volume IIView all articles
Effect of medical insurance policy on child health indicators: an empirical test of difference-in-differences model
Provisionally accepted
- Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
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The integration policy of urban and rural medical insurance of China is an important policy benefiting the people, aimed at promoting health equity and improving the level of medical security.In the present analysis, we aimed to identify the association between health policy implementation and child health taking China for example.Data were drawn from the child sample of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2012-2018, totaling 11003 items, and the number of illness times, height-for-age Z-score, weight-for-age Z-score and BMI-for-age Z-score were served as health indicators. This paper used the difference-in-differences model to explore the impact of urban and rural medical insurance integration policy on children's health and the moderating effect model to analyze the mechanism of action.Our study found that urban-rural medical insurance integration has a positive impact on reducing children's illness and improving nutritional status, particularly among middle socioeconomic status and rural children. In provinces that implemented the policy in 2017, the realization of the integration policy decreased the number of times of children getting sick (β = -0.097, P < 0.05), and increased the BMI-for-age Z-score (β = 0.194, P < 0.05); In addition, participation in commercial medical insurance enhanced the positive impact of the integration of urban and rural medical insurance on children's physical fitness. However, in provinces that implemented the policy in 2018, policy implementation did not change any health indicators. This may suggests a trend where the health promotion effect of the integration policy gradually emerged over time.It is hoped that this study will provide a policy basis and institutional reference for policy makers to construct and develop the children's health insurance system.
Keywords: Medical insurance, integration, Child Health, Physical quality, nutrition, Impact Lag
Received: 13 Jan 2025; Accepted: 20 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Luo, Fu and Xiao. 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: Mimi Xiao, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China
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