Analysis Of Responding Ability Structure Of Disease Control Facilities And Their Development Strategies

Viewing the realistic needs that the Nation pays great importance to develop responding system to public health outbreaks after SARS, the author has conducted some research focusing on responding ability structure of centers for disease prevention and control (CDCs).The study has been undertaken with three stages. The first stage is to form the theoretical conceptions, set up the hypotheses and develops the structural model through reviewing the related studies in the past. The second stage is to modify the theoretical hypotheses and improve the questionnaires on the basis of field interviews. The third stage is to conduct the survey by on-the-spot questionnaire survey to 668 professionals in 29 CDCs at three different levels: provincial, municipal and county levels using a random sampling method. The findings of the study mostly supported the hypotheses. The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Findings of the study did not fully support the hypothesis that the factors used to be considered such as training and rehearsals, health education and health promotion, surveillance over symptoms and medication, reform of CDC system management had influence on the CDC's responding ability. (2)CDC's responding ability structure comprises of six elements: information exchange (CDCs have to establish a mechanism to exchange the alert and responding information with non-health systems), responding service (the superior organizations have to clarify the responsibilities of CDCs in responding period which should be different from their routine activities), medical emergent team (a high level professional emergent medical team has to be established in and out of CDC), human/material resources (the government has responsibilities to provide CDCs with necessary human and material support for ensuring CDCs to accomplish their tasks), information reporting procedure (a scientific information reporting procedure has to be set up and improved) and financial compensation (CDCs should be permitted to implement continuously the policy of "compensated service" while they are not able to meet their expenses with government financial support).Based on the above-mentioned results, the present study suggests some strategies to strengthen CDCs' responding ability which has great signification to guide the practical services.