Measuring inequalities in the public health workforce at county-level Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in China

Cai, Weiqin; Li, Chengyue; Sun, Mei; Hao, Mo

The contextual variables used in the regression analysis were derived from the general baseline data questionnaire, as well as questionnaires on the financial receipts and expenditures, and on infrastructure for the county-level CDCs. These variables were selected based on the existing literature on factors determining the geographical distribution of human resources [20] [21] [22] , including: i) per capita GDP, which represents the socioeconomic factors that may contribute to the disparity in the PHWs' distribution; ii) agency government financial allocation per employee, which is a financial factor that contributes to the wages and benefits for PHWs; iii) agency building area per employee, which has implications on the institutional infrastructure, and also can be described as "work environment"; iv) numbers of training days per employee per year, which represents the opportunity for continuing education and future development; and v) numbers of kindergartens and primary schools per 10,000 population, which represents the impact of social conditions on families (especially children).