Objective To understand the settings, staffing, and performance of public health management departments in Sichuan province, thus providing a basis for exploring the scope, evaluation criteria, and compensation mechanisms of the public health work in medical institutions.

Methods In July 2024, according to the Sichuan Province Medical Institutions Public Health Responsibility List (2023 Edition), a survey form was designed by the Sichuan Preventive Medicine Association for the survey of 261 medical institutions and 648 full-time and part-time public health management practitioners across 21 cities and prefectures in Sichuan province.

Results In the surveyed medical institutions, there were 178 tertiary hospitals and 83 secondary hospitals. More than 80% of hospitals had independent public health department, while the proportion of hospitals where the public health department was co-located with the healthcare-asscoiated infection department exceeded 80%. The proportion of designated/sentinel settings in tertiary hospitals was 56.74%, which was higher than that (34.94%) in secondary hospitals (χ² = 10.762, P = 0.001). In addition, tertiary hospitals outperformed secondary hospitals in the establishment of public health departments (76.97% vs. 60.24%), emergency management departments (91.01% vs. 80.72%), allocation of public health administrators in clinical departments (80.90% vs. 61.45%), and infectious disease information level (92.70% vs. 83.13%). The staffing structure of public health management departments in hospitals was predominantly composed of nurses (56.02%), with a more severe imbalance in secondary hospitals. Although the overall implementation of public health management work was generally consistent between hospitals of different levels, tertiary hospitals had higher proportions in staff health care (47.19% vs. 31.33%), foodborne disease surveillance and reporting (83.71% vs. 69.88%), and myopia prevention and control (14.61% vs. 4.82%) than secondary hospitals. In contrast, secondary hospitals had a higher proportion in hospital infection prevention and control than tertiary hospitals (60.24% vs. 44.38%).

Conclusions Although the public health management in Sichuan province has developed rapidly, there are insufficient resource allocation and uneven service levels. In the future, it is necessary to optimize the organizational framework, adjust the staffing structure, explore compensation mechanisms, and build an evaluation system to improve the overall quality and efficiency of hospital public health services.