BackgroundAlthough China’s modern education for public health was developing over the past 60 years, there is a lack of authoritative statistics and analyses on the nation’s development of education for public health at higher education institutions (HEIs). Few quantitative studies on this topic have been published in domestic and international peer-reviewed journals. To address this knowledge gap, we aimed to use national data to quantitatively analyse the scale, structure, and changes of public health education in China’s HEIs, and to compare the changes of public health education with those of other health science disciplines.MethodsThis study uses previously unreleased national data provided by the Ministry of Education of China that includes the number of health professional students by school and major. The data, which spans from 1998 to 2012, are descriptively analyzed.ResultsThe number of HEIs for public health education per 100 million population increased from 7.2 in 1998 to 11.3 in 2012. The total enrolment, number of students, and number of graduates increased at rates of 7.3, 7.4, and 5.8% per year, respectively. The percentage of junior college students dropped drastically from 24.0 to 8.4% from 1998 to 2012. During that same period, the number of undergraduates, master and doctorate students increased. Undergraduates accounted for the majority of public health graduates (63.1%) in 2012, and master and doctorate students increased by 10.0 and 5.1 times, respectively, from 1998 to 2012. The relative percentage of public health enrollment, students, and graduates to all health education disciplines dropped from about 6.0% percent in 1998 to around 2% in 2012.ConclusionsThe overall scale of public health education has clearly expanded, though at a slower pace than many other health science disciplines in China. The increase of public health graduates helped to address the previous shortage of public health professionals. Gradually adopting a modern model of education, public health education in China has undergone notable changes that may be informative to other developing countries though it still faces a complex situation in terms of graduates’ adherence to public health, student recruitment, teaching and training, program planning and reform.
BackgroundPublic institutions have been the major provider of education for health professionals in China for most of the twentieth century. In the 1990s, the Chinese government began to encourage the establishment of private education institutions, which have been steadily increasing in numbers over the past decade. However, there is a lack of authoritative data on these institutions and little has been published in international journals on the current status of private education of health professionals in China. In light of this knowledge gap, we performed a quantitative analysis of private institutions in China that offer higher education of health professionals.MethodsUsing previously unreleased national data provided by the Ministry of Education of China, we conducted time-series and descriptive analyses to study the scale, structure and educational resources from 1998 to 2012 of private institutions for health professional education.ResultsThe number of private institutions that educate health professionals increased from two in 1999 to 123 in 2012. Private institutions displayed an average annual growth rate of 44.2% for enrolment, 59.0% for the number of students and 53.3% for the number of graduates. In 2012, nursing, clinical medicine and traditional Chinese medicine had the most students (37.2%, 32.8% and 8.9% respectively), representing 78.9% of all students in these institutions. Ninety-seven private institutions located in the more economically advantaged eastern and central China and only 26 ones were in the less economically advantaged western China, respectively turning out 85.2% and 14.8% of health professional graduates. There were less educational resources, such as the number of faculty members, physical space and assets, at private institutions than at public institutions.ConclusionsPrivate institutions for the education of health professionals have emerged quickly in China, contributing to the demand for health professionals that exceeds what public institutions are able to offer. At the same time, the imbalance of geographical distribution and poor educational resources of private institutions are of concern. It may be of utmost importance to enhance administration and supervision to better regulate private institutions and their development plans. Future studies may be needed to better examine the effects of private institutions on the production and allocation of health workers.
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