Spatial effects of transport on healthcare efficiency: Evidence from China

Concerns have been raised regarding the equity and efficiency of Chinese healthcare systems, where improved transportation is expected to be a significant factor. The positive externalities of transport have been confirmed in many domains, but there is a lack of evidence in the field of healthcare. In this study, a three-stage analysis method is used based on provincial panel data from 2010 to 2019, to investigate the spatial effects of the transport development level on healthcare efficiency. It comprises super-efficient slacks-based measure data envelopment analysis, global principal component analysis, and spatial econometric analysis. The results of the evaluation show that both the transport development level and healthcare efficiency in China improved during the study period, with both variables displaying significant spatial heterogeneity and homogeneous agglomeration. The empirical results of the spatial Durbin model based on multiple spatial weight matrices show that the transport development level in a given region not only has a positive direct effect on healthcare efficiency in that region but also has a spatial spillover effect on healthcare efficiency in other regions. The findings provide further insight into the benefits of transport on healthcare and management implications for policymakers to coordinate the development of transport and healthcare systems.