Impact of Medical Resources on Infant Mortality: Taking Yunnan Province as an Example

Abstract

In this study, the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) was used to estimate the long-term impact of the number of health medical institutions and health technicians (two important indicators in medical resources) on infant mortality in Yunnan Province. The error correction model (ECM) was used to estimate the short-term impact influence. The results show that the number of health and medical institutions has a significant positive long-term and short-term impact on infant mortality; the number of health workers has a significant negative short-term impact and a significant positive long-term impact on infant mortality. Several suggestions are also provided to optimize the allocation of medical resources and policy construction. For example, medical institutions should be built and health workers should be recruited judiciously, focusing on “quality” rather than “quantity.” In addition, this study also provides empirical evidence for future research in related fields.