How Healthcare Systems Show Change at the Subnational Level: A Typology Study Based on China's Provincial Data (2012–2019)

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is a conspicuous literature classifying healthcare systems into different types, yet evidence on how healthcare systems differ regionally within the same country is still scant and scattered. This article aims to fill the gap by creating a typology of healthcare systems in China in terms of financing, provision and access to healthcare. By using provincial‐level data from 2012 and 2019, we conduct a cluster analysis. We find that: (1) healthcare systems differ considerably across provinces, which we categorise into five clusters; (2) with the new medical reform ongoing, some changes in our chosen indicators of the healthcare system were detected, which might imply that improvements have occurred; (3) although some provinces showed some divergence from their original clusters, the composition and number of the identified clusters have largely remained the same over the observed period. Our suggested typology of Chinese subnational healthcare systems adds value to existing research in that it engages with cross‐country comparative studies while adding more nuance to existing analyses in Chinese‐language literature.