Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The distribution of medical resources in China is serious imbalanced, which is the result of imbalanced political and economic development. This study aims to assess the distribution characteristics of regional medical resources and the effects of regional imbalances. Data for this study were drawn from the China Health Statistical Year Books and China Statistical Books. In this paper, by calculating the gravitational value, the gravitational matrix between the provinces is established to form a health economic space network. Economically developed provinces are at the center of the health economic network. These provinces play a strong intermediary role in the network and have a quickly connecting with other provinces. The gap between eastern and western China is still obvious. From the north and south of China, the concentration of medical resources in northern provinces is higher. It is found from the spillover effect of the blocks that the provinces with medical resource centers have obvious benefit effects, while the provinces with insufficient resources have obvious spillover effects. There is a significant gap in the geographical distribution of medical resources, and the health economic spatial network structure needs to be improved. Most medical resources are concentrated in economically developed provinces, and their positions in the health economic spatial network are becoming more centralized. By contrast, economically underdeveloped regions are at the edge of the network, causing patients to move to medical resource center provinces. There is a risk of increasing pressure to seek medical treatment in developed provinces with abundant medical resources.