Study on trend of health professional resources in China

Objective To provide useful information for the improvement of policy of human resources and the development of health education.Methods Transfer function-noise model was used to predict the health professional resource in China based on health professional register data from 1981 to 2006.Results The to ta l num be r of hea lth p rofess iona ls w ou ld increase year by year in China from 4719 149 in 2007 to 5 333 518 in 2016.The increase rates of doctors,nurses,examiner and pharmacist in city would be 2.17%,1.379%,1.67%,1.66% each year.The increase rates of doctors,nurses and exam-iner in the rural would be 0.10%,0.12%,0.14%,but the rate of pharmacist in the rural would decrease with a rate of 2.97%.The average growth rates of chief physicians,associate chief physicians and attending physicians weould 2.07%,3.39% and 1.27%,respectively.Conclusion A lthough the number of health professionals accords with the criterion of the 11th Five-Year Plan,the allocation of health professionals is unreasonable in rural and urban a reas.