ArticleBMC geriatrics2022
The impact of retirement on inpatient healthcare utilization in Guangzhou, China: a regression discontinuity analysis of 189,031 health insurance claims.
Article in BMC geriatrics, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Retirement and healthcare expenditures of urban Chinese males: causal evidence from the CHARLS 2020 wave.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2026Article
- Effect of retirement on the body mass index in China: a nationwide study based on the regression discontinuity design.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Hospital utilization among urban poor in Indonesia in 2018: is government-run insurance effective?BMC public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPrevious studies suggest that retirement, a major life event, affects overall healthcare utilization. We examine, the effects of retirement on inpatient healthcare utilization, including effect heterogeneity by gender, disease category, and type of health service.
methodsWe used routine health insurance claims data (N = 87,087) spanning the period 2021 - September 2013 from the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI), a mandatory social health insurance for working and retired employees in urban China. We applied a non-parametric fuzzy regression discontinuity design using the statutory retirement age in urban China as an exogenous instrument to measure the causal effect of retirement on six measures of inpatient healthcare utilization.
resultsRetirement reduced total hospital costs (-84.71 Chinese Yuan (CNY), 95% confidence interval (CI) -172.03 - 2.61), shortened length of hospital stays (-44.59, 95% CI -70.50 - -18.68), and increased hospital readmissions (0.06, 95% CI 0.00 - 0.12) and primary hospital visits (0.06, 95% CI 0.02 - 0.09) among women. Retirement did not significantly change inpatient healthcare utilization among men. The retirement effects among women varied by disease category. Specifically, retirement substantially increased hospitalizations for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), yet had only modest or no effect on hospitalizations for communicable diseases or injuries. Retirement effects among women also varied by the type of services. For relatively inexpensive services, such as nonoperative treatment, there were surges in the extensive margin (hospital readmission). For relatively expensive and invasive services, such as surgeries, retirement reduced the intensive margin (out-of-pocket expenditures and length of stay).
conclusionsRetirement decreases overall use of inpatient healthcare for women. The examination on the disease-related heterogeneous effects helps with the introduction and implementation of integrated healthcare delivery and appropriate incentive schemes to encourage better use of healthcare resources among older adults.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.