Does the creation of healthy cities promote municipal solid waste management? Empirical research in 284 cities in China

China's Healthy City Pilot Policy Improves Physical and Mental Health Outcomes for Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on CHARLS

BACKGROUND

Rapid urbanization in China has raised significant public health concerns, particularly regarding residents' physical and mental well-being. Effective interventions are urgently needed to address these issues.

OBJECTIVE

This study evaluates the impact of China's Healthy City Pilot Policy (HCPP), introduced in 2016, on improving residents' health outcomes and examines demographic differences and mechanisms driving these effects.

METHODS

Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) from 2011 to 2020, a difference-in-differences (DID) approach was employed, along with propensity score matching (PSM-DID), placebo tests, and sensitivity analyses for robust results.

RESULTS

The HCPP significantly enhanced residents' health in pilot cities, leading to better self-rated health, lower medical expenses, higher life satisfaction, and reduced depression. These benefits were most pronounced among the elderly, women, less-educated individuals, and residents of rural and central-western regions. Key mechanisms included increased physical exercise, social activities, and improved air quality.

CONCLUSION

The HCPP positively impacts urban health, especially for vulnerable groups, highlighting the urgent need to integrate health considerations into urban planning and providing valuable insights for future policy development.

Implementation and improvement of policies for building healthy cities in China

Background and purpose

With the promotion of the World Health Organization, China has also launched a healthy city construction campaign. However, healthy city construction needs to formulate a series of policies. How can the current healthy city policy in China be further improved to provide a policy basis for healthy city construction?

Materials and methods

Collected here are policy texts from the Central People's Government and local government of the People's Republic of China on healthy cities from 2009 to 2023. This paper adopts the policy tool analysis method to design a two-dimensional analysis framework of the "policy tool-construction domain." There are three types of policy tools: demand-oriented, supply-oriented, and environmental-oriented. The field of healthy city construction is based on five fields defined by WHO: healthy population, health service, healthy environment, healthy culture, and healthy society. The policy text was coded and analyzed by Nvivo software.

Results

According to the coding analysis of policy texts, among the three types of policy tools, supply-oriented policies account for 60.5%, environmental policies account for 29.1%, and demand-oriented policies account for 10.4%. In the five areas of healthy city construction, healthy environment accounted for 23.7%, healthy society accounted for 12.3%, health services accounted for 39.1%, healthy population accounted for 13%, and health culture accounted for 11.9%. From the two-dimensional perspective of policy tools and the field of healthy city construction, the five fields of healthy city construction have different emphases on the application of three different types of policy tools.

Conclusion

Currently, the supply-oriented policy, the demand-oriented policy, and the environmental policy tools are used comprehensively in healthy city construction in China. The proportion of supply-oriented policy is high, which emphasizes the government's intervention and neglects the participation of individuals and social organizations. The use of policy tools is not balanced in the five different areas of healthy city construction, which to some extent limits the effect of policy implementation and strengthens the overall effect of the healthy city construction policy.

How to implement pairing assistance during fighting COVID-19 in China: collaborative governance between local governments under the authoritative regulation

Background

The pairing assistance policy represents a distinctive instrument utilized by the Chinese government to address major public crises. This study examines the development of a pairing assistance policy by the Chinese Government through its central authority to foster collaborative governance among local governments in areas affected by COVID-19.

Methods

The aim of the study was to gain a clear understanding of how the policy of pairing assistance in public health emergencies is successfully implemented through the top-down application of authority. A case study design was used as a methodology to present an explanatory framework for implementing pairing assistance policies during major public crises. We focus on the operational process of pairing assistance, using the assistance provided by Jiangsu Province to Huangshi City in Hubei Province as an illustration.

Results

This paper finds that responding to a crisis requires the guidance of a central authority and the cooperation of local governments. The process is driven by three key factors: the vertical intervention of the crisis, the inevitability of horizontal cooperation and the policy allocation and incentives of the bureaucracy. The three stages of co-operative governance based on authoritative regulation work together in a step-by-step manner to enhance the effectiveness of crisis response.

Conclusion

The results of the study indicate that collaborative governance under the authoritative regulation is the main reason why provincial counterpart support mechanism plays a great role in COVID-19. This study is the first to approach the study of pairing assistance from the perspective of government authority. It broadens the research horizon of local government cooperation and provides a model for future collaboration.

A study of the spatial network structure of ethnic regions in Northwest China based on multiple factor flows in the context of COVID-19: Evidence from Ningxia

As an underdeveloped and low-income region, the development of minority regions in Northwest China is crucial. As an important part of minority regions, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has insufficient endogenous power for stable economic development and high risk of returning to poverty. On the whole, the Ningxia county network shows a spatial pattern of high in the north and low in the south. However, there are great differences in the centrality of different factor flow networks. The factor connections between most counties are weak, and a close innovation network has not yet been formed. There is an obvious administrative clique structure, showing a certain degree of self-enclosure. The factor flows between counties are relatively uniform and greatly affected by geographic distance. From the perspective of integrated flow, the Ningxia county network presents a distinct core-periphery circle structure. Population size and GDP are the main factors affecting the spatial network. The policy implication of this study is that Ningxia Autonomous Prefecture should coordinate the planning of the region's economy, technology, and transportation, so as to reduce the development gap between counties by enhancing the closeness of the county spatial association network, and ultimately realize the region's high-quality development.