ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1627392
This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Outcomes: The Role of Social Security Systems in Improving Residents' Health WelfareView all 61 articles
Factors Influencing Healthcare-seeking Behavior and Its Process Analysis Among Ethnic Minority Residents: A Qualitative Study in Rural China
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Humanities & Social Development, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling, China
- 2Department of Public Management, College of Humanities and Social Development, Northwest A&F University, xianyang, China
- 3School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang Shuren University, Hangzhou, China
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Healthcare-seeking behavior is a crucial foundation for improving the rational use of healthcare resources and enhancing community health. Existing studies have predominantly focused on quantitative analyses of healthcare-seeking choices and their determinants based on the Homo Economicus assumption, while neglecting the analysis of sociocultural processes underlying healthcare-seeking behavior. This study employed participant observation and in-depth interviews to investigate thirty-two residents from ethnic minority rural areas, with selected typical cases subjected to focused discussion. Based on the theoretical perspective of social capital, this paper explores and analyzes the healthcare-seeking behavior and its underlying logic in ethnic minority rural areas. The findings suggest that institutional trust and interpersonal trust influence patients' choices between formal and informal medical systems. Medical care information, as a prerequisite for patients' decisions, flows differently within ethnic relationship networks and community social networks.Institutional and cultural norms collectively influence healthcare service behaviors and provide support for patients' healthcare-seeking behavior.
Keywords: Healthcare-seeking behavior, social capital, Physician-patient trust, Ethnic medicine, social norms
Received: 12 May 2025; Accepted: 09 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wei, Long and Tian. 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: Yu Tian, School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang Shuren University, Hangzhou, China
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