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

For all categories of PHWs, the absolute ratio between the highest and lowest county density in regions was larger than the ratio between the highest mean regional density (East) and the lowest (West). Overall inequality in the distribution of PHWs was mostly due to withinregion inequality, accounting for 98.5% or more of overall inter-county inequality in the distribution of all categories of PHWs. Table 3 shows the decomposition of inter-county inequality by province, which is different from that by region. Comparing between-region inequality, the absolute value of between-province inequality was more significant for the PHW categories. Between-province inequalities were all above 20%, while within-province inequalities were no less than 74%. For staff, the percentage contribution of between-province to overall inequality was 25.6% (0.0168 of 0.0657), whereas the contribution of between-region to overall inequality was 1.1% (0.0008 of 0.0657). The corresponding numbers for health professionals were 22.8% (0.0160 of 0.0702) compared with 1.5% (0.0010 of 0.0702, between-region contributions). For field epidemiological investigators, the corresponding numbers were 20.4% (0.0222 of 0.1088), compared with 0.5% (0.0005 of 0.1088, between-region contributions).