The Impact Mechanism of Household Financial Debt on Physical Health in China

In recent years, Chinese household financial debt has been growing rapidly due to the expansion of mortgage lending. This study aims to examine the impact mechanism of Chinese household financial debt on physical health. Using the 2010-2018 China Household Tracking Survey (CFPS) panel data, we developed fixed effects models to explore the effect of household financial debt on individuals' psychical health, and we also used an instrumental variable to address endogeneity. The findings suggest that there is a negative effect of household financial debt on physical health and these findings still hold after a series of robustness tests. In addition, household financial debt can affect individuals' physical health through mediating variables, such as healthcare behaviors and mental health, and the effects are more significant for those who are middle-aged, married, and with low-income levels. The findings of this paper are important for developing countries to clarify the relationship between household financial debt and population health, and to develop appropriate health intervention policies for highly indebted households.

Does the National Fitness Policy Promote National Health?—An Empirical Study from China

The influence of national health level in the stability and sustainable development of national society is increasingly prominent. The purpose of this study is to examine whether, when, and how national fitness policies exert influence on national health. Panel data from 2008 to 2017 of 30 Chinese provinces (cities) (except the Tibet autonomous region) were used to systematically reveal the direct impact of national fitness policies on national health and its characteristics in different regions, as well as the interaction mechanisms of human capital and finance health expenditures in public sports. This study found that first, national fitness policies had a positive effect on adult health. Second, sports human capital weakens the health effect of national fitness policies, while public finance health expenditures strengthen this effect. Lastly, the health effect of national fitness policies varies significantly across regions due to uneven regional economic development, and the differences in the effects on different age groups (adults and children) are equally pronounced. This study suggests that national fitness public service system and diverse national fitness plans improving national health level are important for a new dynamic balance and high quality coordinated development in both Chinese economic growth and social welfare.

On the Measurement of Financial Protection: An Assessment of the Usefulness of the Catastrophic Health Expenditure Indicator to Monitor Progress Towards Universal Health Coverage

Ensuring financial protection (FP) against health expenditures is a key component of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.8, which aims to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). While the proportion of households with catastrophic health expenditures exceeding a proportion of their total income or consumption has been adopted as the official SDG indicator, other approaches exist and it is unclear how useful the official indicator is in tracking progress toward the FP sub-target across countries and across time. This paper evaluates the usefulness of the official SDG indicator to measure FP using the RACER framework and discusses how alternative indicators may improve upon the limitations of the official SDG indicator for global monitoring purposes. We find that while all FP indicators have some disadvantages, the official SDG indicator has some properties that severely limit its usefulness for global monitoring purposes. We recommend more research to understand how alternative indicators may enhance global monitoring, as well as improvements to the quality and quantity of underlying data to construct FP indicators in order to improve efforts to monitor progress toward UHC.