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

This study looked for sources of inequality between PHWs through decomposition of different geographical units among regions, provinces, and prefecture-level cities. The successive decomposition showed that inequality is mainly concentrated in counties at the withinprovince and within-municipal levels. Addressing the inequality of health professionals, especially field epidemiological investigators who play a crucial role, must be prioritized, as this relates to the realization of the basic functions of the CDC. Moreover, the results clearly suggest that the government, especially municipal governments at the provincial level, should increase financial investment in CDCs with worse resource allocation in their jurisdiction through various compensation and incentive mechanisms, enhance their infrastructure, and improve the salary of personnel in these institutions, in order to attract more public health professionals to these institutions, thereby fundamentally resolving the problem of unequal distribution of PHWs.