Assessment on current status of public health emergency response capacity and constructing evaluation indicators system in China

Objectives: After the outbreak of SARS in China, government has attached unprecedented importance to the public health, and the emergency response system comes into a higher level construction stage. Status and capacity development of this system becomes part of government’ prioritized lists. This research is aimed at studying current status of public health emergency response system; analyzing the weak points and infecting factors; breaking through bottleneck of constructing emergency response capacity. So as to provide considerable evidence and guiding suggestions for the government strategic decision making.
Methods: There were two components in this research: current status analysis and evaluation indicators’ constructing. Panoramic research methods were employed by through including quantitative as well as qualitative methods. By way of stratified clustering sampling method, samples at provincial, municipal, and county level were obtained. In addition, a framework of emergency capacity evaluation indicators system was established through methods of literature review, brainstorming, and Delphi method. The weight of indicators was determined by direct scoring method and improved Saaty’s weight method.
Results: Totally 823 individuals and 54 institutions were surveyed from CDCs (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), Health Bureaus, hospitals. Moreover, evaluation indicators system was set up with three levels, four dimensions and thirty-five indicators, affiliated with concrete indicator’s definition, weight, calculation and data sources.
Conclusions: The response capacity of public health emergency in China still has room to be improved. Evaluation index system developed by this research can be applied to evaluate the response capacity aiming at public health emergency, And will further facilitate undertaking to construct public health system in China
Key words:  Public Health, Emergency Response Capacity, Constructing, Evaluation IndictorThis research was funded by National High-Tech Research and Development Plan of China
(No. 2006AA02Z460)