The disequilibrium in the distribution of the primary health workforce among eight economic regions and between rural and urban areas in China

Background: Equity is one of the major goals of China's new medical reforms launched in 2009. This study aimed to analyze the disequilibrium in primary health care (PHC) workforce among various economic zones in China and to compare the fairness between urban and rural areas since the implementation of the new medical reforms.

Method: According to China's 11th Five-Year Plan, China is divided into eight economic regions. The data of this study were obtained from China Statistical Yearbook 2009-2016. The Atkinson index was used to depict the trend of PHC workforce fairness; the Gini coefficient was used to compare the fairness of workforce distribution between urban and rural areas; the health resource agglomeration degree was used to analyze the distributional equity of the workforce in the eight regions; and the Theil Index was used to compare the fairness of urban and rural workforce distribution across eight regions.

Result: The Atkinson index indicated that the equity of the entire PHC workforce allocation had generally improved during the new medical reforms; the Gini coefficient indicated that the fairness of the entire workforce allocation had improved in cities, but only the nurse allocation became fairer in rural areas. The agglomeration degree and the Theil index indicated that the fairness gaps across the eight regions were still large. These analyses differed from previous studies where China was divided into western, central and eastern regions. In what was previously defined as eastern region, the northeast was under-resourced, while the eastern coastal areas were observing a resource surplus. In western region, we found that the fairness in the northwest was significantly worse than southwest.

Conclusion: In China, the distribution of healthcare workforce has been improved with continuous effort. The gaps in the distribution of PHC workforce across different economic regions and between urban and rural areas are still large, with different regions facing different problems. The government should consider the population and geographical factors in allocation of PHC workforce, especially nurses.