Spatial Clustering of Gastrointestinal Diseases in Middle-aged and Elderly Chinese Based on Cross-sectional Data

Gastrointestinal diseases are one of the chronic diseases with high prevalence in China. This study aims to explore the spatial distribution of the prevalence of gastrointestinal diseases in middle-aged and elderly people in China in 2011, 2013 and 2015. The data are from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS). Spatial autocorrelation analysis is used to determine the aggregation of cases. It is found that the distribution of gastrointestinal diseases in China has a significant spatial autocorrelation, and not uniformly distributed in space, mainly manifested as high southwest aggregation and high risk of disease. The results of this study have important guiding significance for formulating targeted public health prevention and treatment programs.