China’s Human Resources for Health: Quantity, Quality, and Distribution

This paper analyzes China’s current health workforce in terms of quantity, quality, and distribution. Unlike most countries, China has more doctors than nurses. Doctor density in urban areas was more than twice that in rural areas, with nurse density showing more than a three-fold difference. Over the past decade there has been a massive expansion of medical education, with an excess in the production of health workers over absorption into the health workforce. There is significant inequality in the distribution of doctors and nurses between China’s provinces, as well as urban–rural disparities. These affect health outcomes across counties, provinces and strata in China. [adapted from introduction]