Capacity building for media monitoring in provincial and municipal centers for disease control and prevention in China

Objective To examine current situation and requirement for internet media monitoring capacity among centers for disease control and prevention(CDCs)in China and to provide evidences for improving media monitoring capacity of the CDCs.Methods An online questionnaire survey was conducted among 424 CDCs at provincial or municipal level via smart phone or internet during April to June,2014.Microsoft Excel and an online data analysis module were adopted in data process and analysis.Results Of the 270 CDCs(63.68% of the 424)with eligible response,148(54.81%)had carried out online media monitoring.Among the CDCs reporting implementation of the monitoring,only 39(26.35%)had been conducted online media monitoring for more than 5 years;36(24.32%)employed full-time staff for the work;129(87.16%)used manual searching for media monitoring due to without special media monitoring platform;and 39 possessed the ability to analyze the information collected through media monitoring.The reasons for not conducting online media monitoring reported by the CDCs were deficits in human resource(77.05%),funding(73.77%),and related knowledge(62.30%)for online media monitoring.Conclusion The overall capacity for online media monitoring among CDCs at provincial or municipal level in China is still at a low level,with relative better conditions for the CDCs in eastern regions and poor status for the CDCs in western regions in China.