RESUMO
Objective To investigate the disease types incurring poverty, patient population layout, and cost burden by poor households due to illness. Methods During the time August 17-24,2017, App questionnaires were used onsite for data survey at 2 824 poor hourseholds in Nanyang city of Henan province, in order to learn the impacts of the poverty-causing diseases on the labor capacity of the patients and the cost burdens. Such methods as descriptive analysis, rank sum test and correlation analysis were used for data analysis. Results The survey found that 61.79 percent(1 745 households) of the poor households turned poor by illness, most of them aged 40 to 60 years old. The ten disease categories, namely cerebrovascular diseases, malignant tumor, ischemic heart diseases and mental diseases, constitute top disease causes of poverty. These diseases significantly damage their labor capacity, up to 37.67% of them totally disabled. The self-paid expenses of the patients per year accounted for 57.22% of the total annual expenses. Conclusions Medical insurance policies need to elevate the scope and efforts of medical compensation;public health services need to improve health promotion and health education; government supervision needs to be enhanced to keep minimizing patients′disease burdens.