Health

Doctor taking blood pressure and heart beat of patient.

Health

Working to bring quality health care to rural communities.

Overview

While China has recently made leaps in reforming its health system, major gaps still remain. Due to the sheer size of China’s population and economy, the success or failure of its healthcare system has outsized implications for global health and growth. Underlying issues in China’s health system range from a lack of resources, insufficient expertise, and misaligned incentives for providers. However, unlike many developing countries, China has the wherewithal to deploy novel approaches to improve healthcare outcomes. This unique combination of need and means makes China important for the study of health systems and care for underserved populations.

Featured Projects

Standardized Patients

Standardized patients (SP) are people recruited from local communities and trained to act as “undercover patients” to evaluate clinicians. They are trained to present symptoms of disease while wearing a wire to assess clinician behavior. REAP has trained hundreds of standardized patients to evaluate the quality of health care in rural clinics.

Learn More

Community Health Workers

REAP’s community health workers program places trained, village-based health workers in rural communities to bring quality health care and support to the mothers of young children.

Learn More

Vision Care: Seeing is Learning

REAP has pioneered new understanding about the vital role of vision care as an educational input. Through multiple randomized controlled trials we found that a nearsighted child learns double if you give them a pair of glasses, but only one in seven rural children in China needing glasses actually has them.

Learn More

Journal Articles

Health, Economic, and Social Implications of COVID-19 for China's Rural Population

Agricultural Economics, 2021

Effects of Vision Health Education and Free Eyeglasses on Knowledge of Vision and Usage of Spectacles Among Primary School Students: Evidence from Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces in China

Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 2021

Background

In rural China, children’s vision problems are very common, with many who would benefit from refractive correction not getting the care they need. This study examines whether a health information campaign that involves vision health education and a free trial of health product with free eyeglasses is effective at raising students’ awareness of myopia and promoting students’ eyeglasses usage.

Methods

We conducted an in-the-field randomized controlled experiment of a program providing vision health education and subsidized free eyeglasses to myopic children from 168 primary schools in rural Northwestern China in 2012.

Results

A total of 2189 students, mean age 10.5 years (49.3% male), participated in the baseline survey. At the baseline, the average correct response rate for visual knowledge among the sample students was 30.1%, and only 15% who needed eyeglasses used them. Seven months after intervention, the average correct response rate for vision knowledge were 48.5% and 48.3% in the education group and the education plus free eyeglasses group respectively, significantly higher than that of the control group. The rate of eyeglasses usage was 36% and 43% in the free eyeglasses group and the education plus free eyeglasses group respectively, significantly higher than that of the control group. The rate of eyeglasses compliance in the free eyeglasses group and the education plus free eyeglasses group was 19% and 26%, which also were significantly higher than the control group.

Conclusion

The information campaign combined with subsidized eyeglasses had a better effect both on vision knowledge and eyeglasses usage. The information campaign improved knowledge by providing the right information, and free eyeglasses changed the perceived utility and experience by the students using the product and getting benefits. Information and the free eyeglasses (subsidized) are complements.

Journal Articles

Heterogeneous Impacts of Basic Social Health Insurance on Medical Expenditure: Evidence from China's New Cooperative Medical Scheme

Healthcare, 2019

Journal Articles

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) of Cysticercosis in School-Aged Children in Tibetan Rural Farming Areas of Western China: Implications for Intervention Planning

Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019

Journal Articles

Parental Migration, Educational Achievement, and Mental Health of Junior High School Students in Rural China

China Economic Review, 2019

Journal Articles

Social Engagement and Elderly Health in China: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS)

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019

Journal Articles

All Research Initiatives

Health

Overview

Featured Projects

Standardized Patients

Community Health Workers

Vision Care: Seeing is Learning

Health, Economic, and Social Implications of COVID-19 for China's Rural Population

Effects of Vision Health Education and Free Eyeglasses on Knowledge of Vision and Usage of Spectacles Among Primary School Students: Evidence from Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces in China

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publishing and Assessing the Research of Economists: Lessons from Public Health

Tracking China's Economic Path

Improving Learning by Improving Vision: Evidence from Two Randomized Controlled Trials of Providing Vision Care in China

Tracking the Effects of COVID-19 in Rural China Over Time

Maternal Health Behaviors During Pregnancy in Rural Northwestern China

Effects of Baby-Friendly Practices on Breastfeeding Duration in China: A Case-Control Study

Early Child Development and Caregiver Subjective Well-Being in Rural China

Conditional Cash Transfers, Uptake of Maternal and Child Health Services, and Health Outcomes in Western Rural China

Depressive Symptoms and the Link with Academic Performance among Rural Taiwanese Children

Using Standardised Patients to Assess the Quality of Medical Records: An Application and Evidence from Rural China

Can School Feeding Programs Reduce Malnutrition in Rural China?

Academic Achievement and Mental Health of Left-behind Children in Rural China

Heterogeneous Impacts of Basic Social Health Insurance on Medical Expenditure: Evidence from China's New Cooperative Medical Scheme

Dynamic Anemia Status from Infancy to Preschool-Age: Evidence from Rural China

Old is Not Always Better: Evidence from Five Randomized Experiments in Rural Primary Schools in China

Use of maternal health services among women in the ethnic rural areas of western China

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) of Cysticercosis in School-Aged Children in Tibetan Rural Farming Areas of Western China: Implications for Intervention Planning

Parental Migration, Educational Achievement, and Mental Health of Junior High School Students in Rural China

Social Engagement and Elderly Health in China: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS)

Breastfeeding and the Risk of Illness among Young Children in Rural China

Caregiver Depression and Early Child Development: A Mixed-Methods Study From Rural China

Is Infant/Toddler Anemia a Problem across Rural China? A Mixed-Methods Analysis

Effect of Caregiver's mental Health on Early Childhood Development across Different Rural Communities in China