The impact of public health education on people's demand for commercial health insurance: Empirical evidence from China

Public health education is gaining significance globally, and it is important for managing health risks. This study empirically analyzed the effect of public health education on people's demand for commercial health insurance. And we used the fixed effects and the mediating effect models, and instrumental variables regression in our research based on panel data of 31 provinces (including municipalities and autonomous regions) in China from year 2009 to 2019. The findings show that public health education significantly increases people's demand for commercial health insurance, and this effect remains significant when considering endogeneity and robustness. We further analyzed and found that the increased demand for commercial health insurance is caused by health literacy, health risk perceptions and health risk attitudes. Through heterogeneity analysis, we found that there were significant differences in the effects of public health education in regions with different demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. We found that the effect of health education on promoting people's demand for commercial health insurance is more obvious in regions with high levels of urbanization, proportion of men, education, economic development, medical resources, and social medical insurance coverage. Governments are supposed to take further measures to enhance the effectiveness of public health education, develop high-quality commercial health insurance, and continuously improve health risk coverage.

What Affects Perceived Health Risk Attitude During the Pandemic: Evidence From Migration and Dining Behavior in China

The COVID-19 pandemic changed behaviors, at least temporarily, and possibly more permanently, with implications for both work and leisure activities. Some of those behavioral changes, such as dining in restaurants, have significant ripple effects on businesses and employment. We investigate the response to health risks in China with a study of decisions about eating out during the pandemic. We find that compared to a traditional measure of financial risk attitude, dining out behavior better captures individuals' attitude toward the health risk posed by the pandemic and is more significant in predicting their expected total consumption during the recovery phase of the pandemic. In addition, we find that the effect of domestic in-migration is positive with respect to dining out, a signifier of confidence in the government response to the safety of internal flows. In contrast, international migration and port city of entry status are strongly negative with respect to dining out. The risk from the virus is perceived to be much stronger in such contexts. From a policy perspective establishing border controls was critical in re-creating a robust economy. Additional city and household level characteristics that affect dining-out behavior are also identified.