Objective To analyze the variation trends of health resources and service levels of infectious disease departments in hospitals in different regions of China from 2018 to 2022, thus providing evidence for optimizing resource allocation and improving the ability of medical institutions to prevent and control infectious diseases.

Methods The national and provincial statistical data from China Statistical Yearbook (2023) and China Health Statistics Yearbook (2019 to 2023) were used to analyze the incidence of notifiable infectious diseases, the distribution of medical resources, and the provision of medical services in infectious diseases departments. The Lorentz curve, Gini coefficient, health resource density index, and Moran′s index were adopted to evaluate the spatial and temporal equity of health resources and service supply for infectious disease treatment in China from 2018 to 2022.

Results From 2018 to 2022, the number of beds in infectious disease departments of hospitals in China increased by 30 000 and the number of practicing (assistant) physicians increased by 10 000, with compound growth rates of 5.25% and 15.91%, respectively, which were significantly higher than the overall growth rates of hospitals but still accounted for a low proportion in the overall hospitals. In 2022, the Gini coefficients of the number of beds in infectious disease department, the number of outpatients and emergency patients, and the number of discharged patients according to the population allocation were 0.153, 0.200, and 0.183, respectively, and those according to geographical allocation were 0.612, 0.717, and 0.639, respectively, indicating that population equity was better than geographical equity. From 2018 to 2022, the Moran′s index of the health resource density index of the three indicators ranged from 0.236 to 0.475, showing positive spatial autocorrelation and spatial clustering. The low-low clustering areas were mainly distributed in northwestern and southwestern China, the high-high clustering areas in eastern China, and the low-high clustering areas in Hebei, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi and other places near the high-high clustering areas.

Conclusion The infectious disease departments of hospitals in China faced problems such as a low proportion of health resources, large disparity of resources and services among different regions, and agglomeration of areas with slow development. The capacity of medical institutions to prevent and control infectious diseases should be enhanced from three aspects: strengthening policy support and financial input, promoting the coordinated allocation of medical resources, and raising social awareness of prevention and control.