Geographical and Socioeconomic Disparity Analysis -- An Empirical Study of Hypertension and Its Comorbidities in China

摘要

As one of the most prevalent chronic diseases, hypertension is often a long-term economic burden to patients and public healthcare system. Although hypertension was well studied for its prevalence, comorbidities, and treatment, patient's geographical and socioeconomic disparity has rarely been considered. People from different regions are likely to have different diet and life styles which are important for developing hypertension. We investigated the correlation of the prevalence of hypertension and three comorbidities with various geographical and socioeconomic factors. From 29 hospitals across China, we collected a large sample of electronic medical records. Patient's gender, age, income level, hospital class, and geographical zone were chosen as risk factors. A univariate analysis showed strong correlations between those risk factors and the disease prevalence. Policy makers can benefit from our findings to identify at-risk hypertensive patients with different socioeconomic characteristics in different geographical regions, and thus allocate medical resources more effectively.