Preferences heterogeneity of health care utilization of community residents in China: a stated preference discrete choice experiment.

BACKGROUND: To tackle the issue with the low usage of primary healthcare service in China, it is essential to align resource distribution with the preferences of the community residents. There are few academic researches for describing residents' perceived characteristics of healthcare services in China. This study aims to investigate the preferences of healthcare services utilization in community residents and explore the heterogeneity. The findings will be useful for the policy makers to take targeted measures to tailor the provision of healthcare services. METHODS: The face-to-face interviews and surveys were conducted to elicit four key attributes (care provider; mode of services; cost; travel time) of the preference from community residents for healthcare utilization. A rational test was presented first to confirm the consistency, and then 16 pairs of choice tasks with 12 sociodemographic items were given to the respondents. Two hypothetical options for each set, without an opt-out option, were presented in each choice task. The latent class analysis (LCA) was used to analyse the data. RESULTS: Two thousand one hundred sixty respondents from 36 communities in 6 cities were recruited for our study. 2019 (93.47%) respondents completed valid discrete choice experiment (DCE) questionnaires. The LCA results suggested that four groups of similar preferences were identified. The first group (27.29%) labelled as "Comprehensive consideration" had an even preference of all four attributes. The second group (37.79%) labelled as "Price-driven" preferred low-price healthcare services. The third group labelled as "Near distance" showed a clear preference for seeking healthcare services nearby. The fourth group (34.18%) labelled as "Quality seeker" preferred the healthcare service provided by experts. Willingness to pay (WTP) results showed that people were willing to accept CNY202.12($29.37) for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) services and willing to pay CNY604.31($87.81) for the service provided by experts. CONCLUSIONS: Our study qualitatively measures the distinct preferences for healthcare utilization in community residents in China. The results suggest that the care provider, mode of services, travel time and cost should be considered in priority setting decisions. The study, however, reveals substantial disagreement in opinion of TCM between different population subgroups.

Rapid detection of Rosa laevigata polysaccharide content by near-infrared spectroscopy.

A method of rapid detecting Rosa laevigata polysaccharide content on the basis of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was established to achieve the purpose of controlling quality of R. laevigata. A total of 129 batches of R. laevigata samples were randomly divided into calibration set and prediction set, number of which were 65 and 64 respectively. The polysaccharide content was measured according to the method provided by Chinese pharmacopoeia, and was 26.05±5.44(%). The Near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectra of R. laevigata were preprocessed by first-order derivative and autoscaling, and was built model with PLS. When 6 Latent variables (LVs) were used in model, the smallest root mean square error of cross validation (RMSECV) was 1.18%, and root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) was 1.21%. The uninformative variables in spectrum were eliminated by UVE-PLS, and 383 variables were obtained. The prediction accuracy was improved, and RMSECV and RMSEP were 0.90% and 0.99% respectively. Then, 383 variables were further optimized by genetic algorithm (UVE-GA-PLS), and 179 variables were obtained; under this condition, the RMSECV and RMSEP were 0.93% and 1.07% respectively. In this work, result of UVE-PLS was the best. Analyzing variables VIP score in PLS, variable selected by UVE-PLS and UVE-GA-PLS, spectrum region from 7200 cm(-1) to 6700 cm(-1) of the combinations of first and second overtone of C-H and from 5300 cm(-1) to 5000 cm(-1) related to the first overtone of O-H could play an important role in the detection R. laevigata polysaccharide by NIR. Therefore, it was feasible of rapid detection of R. laevigata polysaccharide content by NIRS.