The Effect of Health Education on Migration Health: Evidence from a Large Migrant Survey in China

Abstract

Reducing health inequities for migrants is a huge challenge shared globally. Based on big data of China Migrants Dynamic Survey in 2017, this paper applied Ordered Logit models and Logit models to examine the effect of health education on the health of migrants. Propensity score matching and instrumental variable were also employed to solve the endogenous problem. This paper found a significant health promotion effect of health education on the health of migrants, which remained significant after a series of robustness check. Further analysis showed that consultative health education is more effective than nonconsultative health education. Meanwhile, the positive association between health education and migrants' health behavior was identified which provided empirical evidence for knowledge, attitude, and practices theory. Heterogeneity analyses supported that health education has a stronger effect on migrants who were female, elderly, highly educated, and did not have chronic diseases than on those who were male, younger, less educated, and had chronic diseases. This paper demonstrates that health education is an important health promotion factor for migrants empirically and that the government should take actions to provide sufficient and targeted health education for migrants to promote their health.