We adopted the difference-in-difference method to investigate whether the national multidisciplinary healthcare assistance policy could provide significant benefits in areas affected by COVID-19 by increasing their recovery rates. The approach has been proven to be effective in evaluating policy implementation.6 We selected 11 cities as intervention group, including Huangshi, Xiangyang, Shiyan, Jingzhou, Yichang, Jingmen, Ezhou, Xiaogan, Huanggang, Xianning and Suizhou. The Enshi autonomous prefecture, Xiantao, Qianjiang, Tianmen and Shennongjia forest were excluded due to their different administrative levels. Xinyang (from Henan Province), Xinyu and Jiujiang (from Jiangxi Province), and Changde, Yueyang, and Shaoyang (from Hunan Province) were included as a control group due to their similar demographics and social development status with the selected 11 cities in Hubei. A total of 578 panel data samples from January 23 to February 25, 2020 were analyzed in the SPSS 25.0, which were collected from the official website of the Ministry of Health in China7 and the Chinese Statistical Yearbook.8 In our analysis, we included policy implementation, whether it was in the intervention group, and the interaction between these two variables as independent variables. The number of recovered cases per day was included as a dependent variable, and health resources, GDP per capita, resident population, and land area were included as covariates. Since the regression coefficient for the cases recovered on whether they were in the intervention group was not significant (β=−0.12, p =0.16), the investigation was implemented. Based on our findings, no significant difference in the development trend of the recovered cases before the policy was implemented (β=0.72, p =0.10). The number of recovered cases per day was significantly negatively correlated with GDP per capita (β = −1.13, p <0.05), land area (β = −9.30, p <0.001), and significantly positively correlated with the resident population (β = 0.07, p <0.001). After controlling for the impact of the above variables, the number of recovered cases per day increased by 39.36 as a result of the national multidisciplinary healthcare assistance (Table 1). The number 39.36 is the sum of the regression coefficient of policy implementation and DID term. Therefore, the national multidisciplinary healthcare assistance possibly contributed to reduce the burden of COVID-19, and eased pressure on the healthcare system in Hubei and China.
Table 1 The Impact of “National Multidisciplinary Healthcare Assistance” on the Number of Recovered Cases per Day (Mixed OLS Regression Results)
Variable Observations Mean SD β 95% CI P
Permanent population (104 people) 578 428.26 189.20 0.07 0.04 to 0.10 ***
Land area (104 square kilometers) 578 1.40 0.65 −9.30 −13.62 to −4.98 ***
GDP per capita (104 Yuan) 578 5.71 2.05 −1.13 −2.08 to −0.17 *
Medical beds (104) 578 2.60 1.15 −4.15 −10.06 to 1.77 0.17
Policy implementation (0,1) 578 0.47 0.50 4.83 0.10 to 9.56 *
Whether it is an intervention group (0,1) 578 0.65 0.48 8.06 3.77 to 12.35 ***
DID (0,1) 578 0.30 0.46 34.53 28.65 to 40.41 ***
R2 0.57***
Note: *p<0.05, ***p<0.001.
Abbreviations: DID, the interaction item between policy implementation and whether it is an intervention group; SD, standard deviation; β, unstandardized regression coefficient; 95% CI, 95% confidence interval.