The Impact of Hospital Distance on the Chinese Inpatient Service Demand in Rural Areas：The Application of Discrete ;Choice Model

医院地域性对居民医疗需求的影响不仅仅是一个重要的学术问题，同样也具有很重要的政策含义。文章利用2006年和2008年所采集到的山东省97个村的家户调查问卷数据，研究了就诊距离对我国农村地区农民住院需求的影响。文章使用离散选择模型，估计了我国农村地区患者住院就医的需求函数。分析发现，农村患者的住院就医需求受到医院距离的显著影响。随着去医院就诊距离增加，患者去该医院就诊的概率会下降。并且这一影响也随着医院等级的变化而变化：越是基层的医院，影响越大。该研究为医疗服务的地域特性提供了新的证据。It is always an important academic and policy issue to understand the impact of hospital distance on Chinese inpatient service demand in rural areas. It employs household survey data collected from 97 villages in Shandong in 2006 and 2008, and investigates the influences of hospital distance on the demand of famars in rural areas. The discrete choice model is constructed to estimate the inpatient service demand function for patients in rural areas. The empirical analysis finds that the hospital distance is significantly affecting Chinese inpatient service demand in the rural areas. The longer the distance increases, the lower the visiting rate drops. In addition, the impact changes with the changes of hospital level; the lower the primary hospital is, the higher the impact would be. It paper provides new evidence for the understanding of the geographical characteristics of medical health care.中文核心期刊要目总览(PKU)中国科技核心期刊(ISTIC)0111-1