Internal migration and health in China: Understanding migrants' health seeking practices

Rural-to-urban migrants are a new and constantly growing segment of the population that has emerged in Chinese cities since the beginning of the reform era. Their lack of access to health care has resulted in various alternative health seeking practices. While existing research on health seeking is characterized by an abundance of empirical studies and a lack of theoretical grounding, in this paper I present a new approach that conceptualizes the various interlinkages and interdependencies of structure (e.g. regulation in health care and occupational systems, cultural norms and health beliefs), different types of agents (e.g. administration, health practitioners, NGOs, social organizations and networks) and individual practices. A mixed methods research approach is applied. The primary data that is used consists of 39 qualitative interviews with migrants and a quantitative survey with 450 migrants living in Guangzhou as well as 29 qualitative interviews with representatives of administrative units of different levels, health services providers, representatives of NGOs and social organizations. The transfer of the theoretical approach to the example of Chinese rural-to-urban migrants showed that it has the potential to detect a substantial number of factors influencing health seeking that have not been regarded in existing works.