COVID-19 pandemic health expenditures and family economic behaviors: China health and retirement longitudinal study (CHARLS)

Since the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, there has been a total of 776 million confirmed infection cases worldwide with both countries, China and the US contributing a substantial number of cases. Aside from the grand number of cases, the pandemic has also demonstrated a worldwide financial toll. Specifically, as of May 20, 2020, China has been reported to obtain a cost of $373.20 million in overall patient hospitalizations. Yet, aside from these hospitalizations, the purchasing of personal protective equipment (PPE) to mitigate one’s risk for infection can also be expensive. In addition, the pandemic itself has resulted in a wealth of businesses shutting down worldwide, consequently resulting in job losses and attenuated income for workers worldwide. Thus, exploring the behavior of PPE purchasing by primary respondents of individual households as well as the degree in mediating their expenses following the pandemic was the focus of this study. Specifically, the present investigation sought to examine the association between medical and fitness expenditure toward PPE purchasing behavior for mainland residents of China aged 45+ due to the lack of existing literature examining this relationship from the best of our knowledge. The former relates to both direct and indirect medical expenses whilst the latter refers to the purchasing of exercise equipment and health supplements. Second, these expenditures were further utilized to explore its association with the level of ease in covering expenses following the pandemic as well. This was a secondary data analysis that used cross-sectional data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study database, wherein generalized linear mixed effects models were applied in examining the associations. Both medical and fitness expenditure were insignificant predictors of PPE purchasing behavior whilst they expressed a significant association toward predicting the degree of ease for the included participants in covering their daily expenses following the onset of the pandemic.