title: The old age health security in rural China: where to go?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The huge number of rural elders and the deepening health problems (e.g. growing threats of infectious diseases and chronic diseases etc.) place enormous pressure on old age health security in rural China. This study aims to provide information for policy-makers to develop effective measures for promoting rural elders' health care service access by examining the current developments and challenges confronted by the old age health security in rural China.
  
  
  METHODS
  Search resources are electronic databases, web pages of the National Bureau of Statistics of China and the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China on the internet, China Population and Employment Statistics Yearbook, China Civil Affairs' Statistical Yearbook and China Health Statistics Yearbooks etc. Articles were identified from Elsevier, Wiley, EBSCO, EMBASE, PubMed, SCI Expanded, ProQuest, and National Knowledge Infrastructure of China (CNKI) which is the most informative database in Chinese. Search terms were "rural", "China", "health security", "cooperative medical scheme", "social medical assistance", "medical insurance" or "community based medical insurance", "old", or "elder", "elderly", or "aged", "aging". Google scholar was searched with the same combination of keywords.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed that old age health security in rural China had expanded to all rural elders and substantially improved health care service utilization among rural elders. Increasing chronic disease prevalence rates, pressing public health issues, inefficient rural health care service provision system and lack of sufficient financing challenged the old age health security in rural China.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Increasing funds from the central and regional governments for old age health security in rural China will contribute to reducing urban-rural disparities in provision of old age health security and increasing health equity among rural elders between different regions. Meanwhile, initiating provider payment reform may contribute to improving the efficiency of rural health care service provision system and promoting health care service access among rural elders.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Management, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, Zhenjiang, 212013, China. hixiaodai@126.com.|Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624 North Broadway, Baltimore, 21205, USA. hixiaodai@126.com.
authors.forename: Baozhen
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dai
mesh_terms: D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000191:economics*; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012424:Rural Population