Evaluating health policies with subnational disparities: a text-mining analysis of the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance Scheme in China.

ABSTRACT: Subnational disparities in most health systems often defy 'one-size-fits-all' approach in policy implementation. When local authorities implement a national policy in a decentralized context, they behave as a strategic policy actor in specifying the central mandates, selecting appropriate tools and setting key implementation parameters. Local policy discretion leads to diverse policy mixes across regions, thus complicating evidence-based evaluations of policy impacts. When measuring complex policy reforms, mainstream policy evaluation methodologies have tended to adopt simplified policy proxies that often disguise distinct policy choices across localities, leaving the heterogeneous effects of the same generic policy largely unknown. Using the emerging 'text-as-data' methodology and drawing

SUBMITTER: Liu K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9849718 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature