Objective  To explore influencing factors of supervision and law enforcement capacity of health administrative institutions and to provide references for improving institutional capacity of health supervision.

  Methods   With a self-designed questionnaire and cluster sampling, we conducted a survey among 300 front-line staff in health supervision institutions in Hebi municipality of Henan province in December 2019. Structural equation model (SEM) was adopted in data analysis.

  Results   The established SEM fits the data well (minimum chi-square/degree of freedom, CMIN/DF = 1.696, root mean square error of approximation RMSEA = 0.049, comparative-fit index CFI = 0.949). The SEM analysis revealed that law enforcement personnel, resource allocation, and right and responsibility assignment impose a direct positive effect on supervision capacity; the need for health supervision exerts a direct positive effect on government support, supervision mechanism, and resource allocation and an indirect effect on health law enforcement capability through the three factors being influenced; government support has a direct positive effect on right and responsibility assignment, supervision mechanism, and resource allocation and affects law enforcement capability through mediating effect of law enforcement personnel, resource allocation, and supervision mechanism.

  Conclusion  Health supervision and law enforcement capacity are affected directly by supervision personnel, resource allocation, and right and responsibility assignment but indirectly by supervision mechanism, the need for supervision, and government support.