Objective To explore the status and causes of imbalance of public health service (PHS) supplied by village doctors in rural areas of Hebei province for making suggestions to development and equalization of PHS in rural areas.

Methods Using a self-designed questionnaire, we carried out a survey among 800 village doctors recruited with multistage random sampling in 20 towns of 10 counties of 5 municipalities in Hebei province in 2011. Information on basic PHS provided by the village doctors and PHS-related responsibilities of the village doctors were collected, evaluated, and compared.

Results Of all the village doctors, 732 (91.5%) completed the survey. The average scoring rate for 11 basic PHS items ranged from 68.25% to 80.75%, with an average overall scoring rate of 76.59%. Among the basic PHS items provided by the village doctors, the management on chronic disease was graded the highest score of 3.25 ± 0.73 (scale of 0 – 4) and the identification of Chinese medicinal materials was graded the lowest score of 2.73 ± 1.07. The score for basic PHS items differed significantly by geographical region, the village doctors′ age and whether a village doctor being certificated as a practicing physician or an assistant practicing physician (P < 0.05 for all). Logistic regression analyses indicated that a village doctor′s sense of responsibility for performing basic PHS was mainly influenced by the doctor′s age, geographical region, education, and whether being certificated as a practicing physician or a assistant practicing physician.

Conclusion In rural areas of Hebei province, the basic public health service is not evenly performed by village doctors and the evaluation score for public health service is relatively low. The results suggest that measures should be taken to improve the public health service supplied by village doctors for the promotion and equalization of basic public health service.