Objective  To investigate human resource for chronic disease prevention and control in disease control and prevention institutions in southwest China in 2017, and to provide references for promoting health human resource development in the region.

  Methods   From the Fifth National Survey on Chronic Diseases Prevention and Control Capability conducted during July – November 2018 among centers for disease control and prevention (CDCs), we extracted the data on 2 119 on-the-job personnel engaged in chronic disease prevention and control in 576 CDCs at various levels in the five provincial-level administrative regions including Chongqing municipality, Sichuan/Guizhou/Yunnan province and Tibet Autonomous Region. The personnel′s professional ability-related characteristics and allocation were analyzed statistically.

  Results   In general, the surveyed personnel accounted for 6.5% of all the on-the-job personnel in the 576 CDCs and the full-time personnel for chronic disease prevention and control in the surveyed personnel accounted for 4.6% of all the full-time staff in the CDCs. The average age of the personnel was 36.9 years and 40.7% of the personnel were aged 25 – 34 years. There were 59.5% of the personnel with the working years of less than five; the majority (57.5%) of the personnel having the education of bachelor and above and almost all (94.9%) of the personnel were majoring in medicine. Over two-fifths (44.8%) of the personnel had primary professional title. Among the five regions, there were significant disparities in the personnel′s proportions in terms of accounting for all the on-the-job personnel and for all the full-time staff in the CDCs, age, working years, and associate senior or above professional title (all P < 0.01). The region-specific proportion of the personnel accounting for all the on-the-job personnel and for all the full-time staff in the CDCs were inversely related to the region′s administrative level significantly (both P < 0.05); while, the region-specific working years of the personnel, region-specific proportions of the personnel with the education of bachelor and above, majoring in medicine, and with the professional title of associate senior and above were positively related to the region′s administrative level significantly (all P < 0.01).

  Conclusion   The human resource for chronic disease prevention and control was disproportionate to the growing burden of chronic diseases and there were administrative region disparities in the professional ability-related characteristics of the human resource in southwest China in 2017.