ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1663598
The Impact of Health in All Policies on Urban Innovation: A Mediation Analysis of Human Capital Accumulation Using Panel Data from 271 Cities in China
Provisionally accepted
- Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
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This study investigates the impact of Health in All Policies (HiAP) on urban innovation within the context of China. Building on migration theory, innovation ecosystem theory, and the country's institutional context, we identify human capital accumulation as a key mediating factor. Using a panel dataset of 271 cities from 2013 to 2021, we find that HiAP significantly enhances urban innovation, with the magnitude of its effect varying across city size, administrative level, and geographic region. Furthermore, human capital accumulation mediates the relationship between HiAP and innovation outcomes. These results underscore the importance of HiAP in promoting innovation through human capital development and offer practical policy implications for advancing sustainable urban development.
Keywords: health in all policy (HiAP), Urban innovation, Human capital accumulation, China, HiAP
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Zhao and Liu. 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: Yijun Liu, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
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