The impact of the health care workforce on under-five mortality in rural China

Table 3 Sensitivity analyses for the association between the density of health professionals and the under-five mortality rate in rural China, 2008–2014

Variables	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Variables	Unadjusted U5MR	Interaction with GDP trajectory	Interaction with equipment value (continuous)	Interaction with equipment value (dummy)	Without female illiteracy rate
Total HP	− 0.035**	− 0.007	− 0.042	− 0.024**	− 0.026**
	0.010	0.007	0.044	0.007	0.007
Trajectory of GDP per capita (medium group as the reference)
Total HP # slowly rising		− 0.065**
Total HP # slowly rising		0.015
Total HP # rapidly rising		− 0.035+
Total HP # rapidly rising		0.021
Total HP # Value of equipment per bed (continuous)			0.001
Total HP # Value of equipment per bed (continuous)			0.004
Total HP # Value of equipment per bed (high group as the reference)				− 0.005
				0.006
GDP per capita (log)	− 0.087*		− 0.098**	− 0.100**	− 0.103**
GDP per capita (log)	0.041		0.026	0.027	0.026
Female illiteracy rate	0.005*	0.003+	0.004*	0.004*
Female illiteracy rate	0.002	0.002	0.002	0.002
Provincial health expenditure/GDP (high group as the reference)	0.037+	0.047**	0.051**	0.051**	0.050**
	0.019	0.015	0.015	0.015	0.015
Value of equipment per bed (log)	− 0.001	−0.014	− 0.021		− 0.018*
Value of equipment per bed (log)	0.012	0.009	0.015		0.008
Value of equipment per bed (high group as the reference)				0.019
Value of equipment per bed (high group as the reference)				0.023
Number of observations	7 618	7 653	7 653	7 653	7 653
Adjusted R² (within group)	0.327	0.426	0.423	0.423	0.423

HP health professionals, GDP gross domestic product
Numbers in the cells are fixed effects estimators with their standard errors underneath
+p < 0.1; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01
All models include fixed effects for years and intercepts, but these values are not shown in the table
Model 1 shows the result when the dependent variable is the log of unadjusted U5MR which does not consider undercounting of child mortality. Model 2 analyzes the modification effects of GDP trajectory on the relationship between health professionals and U5MR, but without GDP per capita as a covariate. Model 3 and model 4 analyze modification effect of equipment value per bed (continuous scale in model 3, dichotomous scale by median of each year in model 4) in the relationship between health professionals and U5MR. Model 5 shows the results without the female illiteracy rate as a covariate

ISSN: 1478-4491