关键词: 死亡水平, 医疗设施投入, 社会经济发展, 健康转变

Abstract: Exploring regional differences in mortality levels and their evolutionary trends is an important way to understand China's mortality and health transition. By using provincial mortality data from the third to the seventh censuses as revised by the Log-Quad Model and provincial statistics from various sources, this study analyzes variations in mortality levels and their driving mechanisms across age groups in China by space-time framework. It is found that firstly, the life expectancy gap between different regions in China has continued to show a pattern of being higher in the east and lower in the west, while the gap in infant mortality rates has narrowed and the gap in elderly mortality rates has increased. Secondly, with the shift in the epidemiological pattern of mortality, the driving mechanism behind the decline in mortality rates in China has shifted from medical facility investment to socio-economic development. The regional differences in mortality rates are largely driven by the stage-specific differences in the driving mechanisms of different regions. Given that socio-economic development has increasingly become the main driving force behind the convergence of regional mortality rates in China, efforts should be made to improve the socio-economic level of different regions, while consolidating existing medical investment.

Keywords: Mortality Level, Medical Investment, Socio-economic Development, Health Transition