Objective   To verify key issues in the process of communicable disease control for urban primary health care institutions based on assessing the importance, seriousness, and priority of the issues.

  Methods   We searched China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, the VIP database, and China Biomedical Literature Service System (SinoMed) for related studies published till August 21, 2020 and conducted literature researches and expert consultations to establish an overall list of the key issues. Then we calculated the index of importance ( I_i ), seriousness ( S_i ), and priority ( R_i ) for all issues listed for the determination of the items of the key issues.

  Results  Totally 432 issues in the process of communicable disease control for urban primary health care institutions were identified based on literature studies on 126 finally included researches. We summarized the 432 issues into an issue system with 7 first-level issues and 22 second-level issues. Among all the issues in the constructed system, 3 were assessed as key issues, including the lack of public health doctors ( R_i = 0.0765), the absence of institutional arrangement among urban primary health care institutions, upper-level hospitals and administrative agencies ( R_i = 0.0741), and the incompetence of communicable disease diagnosis ( R_i = 0.0566).

  Conclusion   The structure of institutional system, human resource allocation and professional capability are key issues in the process of communicable disease control for urban primary health care institutions.