Health status and utilization of health service among rural residents in Xinjiang

Objective To explore the changes of health status,requirement,utilization,and the equity of health service among rural residents in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from 2003 to 2008. Methods The data from National Health Services Research in rural residents of Xinjiang in 2003 and 2008 were collected.SPSS 13.0 software was used to analyze the data.The concentration index(CI)of health service utilization was calculated with quintile method to evaluate the equity. Results The distributions of gender and age of the residents were not statistically different between the two health service studies(P>0.05).From 2003 to 2008,two-weeks disease prevalence rate increased from 9.1% to 15.0%;the prevalence rate of noncommunicable chronic diseases(NCDS)increased from 7.8% to 14.6% (P<0.001);two-weeks consultation rate increased from 8.5% to 11.0% (P<0.001);the non-consultation rate was 45.0% and 45.1%,respectively;the hospitalization rate increased from 5.6% to 11.6% and the non-hospitalization rate decreased from 42.4% to 15.4% (P<0.001).The CI for two-weeks consultation rate increased from 0.09 to 0.11;the CI for non-consultation decreased from-0.11 to -0.06;the CI for hospitalization and non-hospitalization rate tended to zero(0.03,0.01)in 2008. Conclusion In 2008,the two-weeks disease prevalence rate and prevalences of NCDS and the utilization of health service increased,whereas the utilization of out-patient service among poor residents was restrained and the equity of inpatient health service was improved among rural residents in Xinjiang.