Objective  To acknowledge the status and influencing factors of health care personnel in kindergartens and nurseries in China.

  Methods  Data were collected from the 2013 National Preschool Health Care Survey. Totally 5 405 preschool institutions were selected in all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across China with stratified probability proportion to size sampling for a questionnaire survey to collect information on health care staffing.

  Results  The average staffing rate of health care workers was 75.0% for the preschool institutions and the staffing rate of full-time and part-time health care worker were 44.2% and 30.8%, respectively. Of the medical personnel employed by the institutions, 34.1% were graduates of medical universities; 23.3% were doctors or nurses with professional certification; and only 15.3% were licensed for medical practice. There were significant differences in the staffing rate of health care workers and the proportion of the staff with professional certification among the preschool institutions in different regions, locations referring to urban function, and institution scale. Multivariate logistic regression analyses demonstrated that administrative region, location referring to urban function, and institution scale were influencing factors for health care staffing of the institutions. Geographical location and preschool institution scale are factors that influence the health care worker allocation. Staffing rate of health care workers of the preschool institutions in eastern regions of China was four time higher than that of the institutions in western regions.

  Conclusion  The health care staffing of preschool institutions increased obviously compared to that 10 years ago in China; but deficit in allocation and low qualification of the medical workers still exist in the preschool institutions.