The public health emergency management system in China: trends from 2002 to 2012

Sun, Mei; Xu, Ningze; Li, Chengyue; Wu, Dan; Zou, Jiatong; Wang, Ying; Luo, Li; Yu, Mingzhu; Zhang, Yu; Wang, Hua; Shi, Peiwu; Chen, Zheng; Wang, Jian; Lu, Yueliang; Li, Qi; Wang, Xinhua; Bi, Zhenqiang; Fan, Ming; Fu, Liping; Yu, Jingjin; Hao, Mo

Second, balanced development at different regions and levels is very important. County CDCs in the front lines [34] had the weakest capabilities. One possible reason was that the relevant policies including contingency plan, work specifications, and guidelines were not instructive and operable enough for county CDCs [35] . Another reason was an inequitable distribution of personnel in urban and rural areas [36] . Available data showed that compared with county CDCs, a greater number of personnel with degree higher than bachelor worked at provincial and municipal CDCs [37] . Additionally, the governmental funding per staff for county CDCs in 2012 was 0.1557 million CNÂ¥, which was much lower than the funding at municipal and provincial CDCs (0.2593 and 0.5406 million CNÂ¥, respectively) [38] . From the perspective of regional disparity, CDCs in Western region were the weakest. Reasons include that it had the poorest fiscal capacity to fund CDCs; a limited personnel size; and an inadequate stockpile in terms of working budget, timely reserves, and prompt delivery [39] . Third, the application of new technologies should keep pace with science and technology development. For example, the disease surveillance systems need to be integrated with the use of standard data formats and allow the public health community to respond more quickly to public health threats [40] . A Stockpile Management and Tracking System could also be designed and used to manage stockpiles across different levels and regions [41] .