Mental health resources and its equity in Central South of China: A case study of Hunan Province

Bang-An Luo; Sheng Li; Si Chen; Lu-Lu Qin; Yi-Wei Chen; Man-Ling Shu; Xin-Yi Liao

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0272073

Mental health resources and its equity in Central South of China: A case study of Hunan Province

PLoS One. 2022 Oct 12;17(10):e0272073. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272073. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Bang-An Luo^{1

2}, Sheng Li³, Si Chen³, Lu-Lu Qin³, Yi-Wei Chen⁴, Man-Ling Shu³, Xin-Yi Liao³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Social Medicine and Health Management, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha, China.
² Department of Mental Health, Brain Hospital of Hunan Province, Changsha, Hunan, China.
³ Department of Social Medicine and Health Management, School of Medicine, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.
⁴ Department of Neurology, Xiangya Third Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.

Abstract

Objectives: Mental health resources are an important basis for coping with mental health services. The equity is an important index of a reasonable allocation of health resources. This study aims to evaluate the mental health resources and its equity allocation in Hunan Province, which is one of the typical central south areas of China, so as to provide reference for the development of mental health in China and other areas.

Methods: Data related to mental health resources was obtained from the Project of Mental Health Resources in Hunan Province, which was conducted by the Department of Hunan Mental Health Center in 2019. The Gini coefficient, the Theil index and other indicators were employed to quantitatively evaluate the equity of mental health resources' allocation.

Results: By the end of 2018, there were a total of 141 mental health institutions in Hunan Province of China, the bed density was 5.31 beds per 10,000 people, the ratio of doctors to nurses was 2.20, the number of outpatients of mental health institutions was 1288,047 per year. The mental health resources' allocation in terms of demographic dimension were in a preferred status with the Gini values all less than 0.3, and the Gini values for mental health resources`allocation in terms of geographical dimension ranged from 0.24 to 0.35. The Theil index for mental health allocation in terms of demographic dimension was lower than 0.05, and the Theil index for mental health allocation in terms of geographical dimension ranged from 0.04 to 0.11.

Conclusions: The shortage of mental health resources is still the priority issue to be increased and optimized by policy-makers in Hunan in the future, especially the human resources. Moreover, the utilization of mental health resources was low though its equity was fair. Policy-makers need to consider the high utilization and geographical accessibility of health resources among different regions to ensure people in different regions could get access to available health services.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Health Equity*
Health Resources*
Health Services Accessibility
Humans
Mental Health
Resource Allocation

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Scientific Research Project of Hunan Health Committee (202112071622); National Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People`s Republic of China (2019-GMD-076); The Project of Hunan Social Science Achievement Evaluation Committee (XSP19YBC276, XSP20YBC248); Scientific Research Project of Brain Hospital of Hunan Province (2018E07); The Medical Humanities and Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Research Project of Hunan Normal University (2020); The project of Hunan Disabled Persons Federation (2018XK012, 2019XK026); Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for College Students in Hunan Province (S202010542106). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.