Objective To investigate the current status of job satisfaction and its influencing factors among public health service personnel in Shanxi province, and to provide a reference for improving the quality of public health services in Shanxi province.

Methods From June to December 2023, a stratified random cluster sampling method was used to select 3 694 in-service personnel participating in public health services from 60 public health institutions and medical institutions in six cities in southern, central, and northern Shanxi province. An online questionnaire survey was conducted via the Questionnaire Star platform. Non-parametric tests and multiple linear regression models were used to analyze the influencing factors of job satisfaction among public health service personnel in the region. A random forest model was used to rank the importance of these influencing factors.

Results The overall job satisfaction score of public health service personnel in Shanxi province was 12.00 (11.75, 16.00). The satisfaction scores for talent treatment guarantee, talent incentive mechanism, talent evaluation model, and talent promotion mechanism were all 3.00 (3.00, 4.00). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that female gender (β' = 0.063), higher occupational identity (β' = 0.206), willingness to participate in cross-training of clinical skills for public health technical personnel (β' = 0.029), establishment of a "peace-epidemic" functional transformation mechanism in the unit (β' = 0.042), establishment of a traditional Chinese medicine collaboration mechanism in the unit (β' = 0.056), complete information docking between the unit and medical institutions (β' = 0.071), slight improvement in personnel treatment guarantee in the past three years (β' = 0.103) and significant improvement (β' = 0.147), slight improvement in talent incentive mechanism (β' = 0.143) and significant improvement (β' = 0.170), slight improvement in talent evaluation model (β' = 0.084) and significant improvement (β' = 0.167), and slight improvement in talent promotion mechanism (β' = 0.152) and significant improvement (β' = 0.203) were associated with higher overall job satisfaction among public health service personnel in Shanxi province. A master′s degree or above (β' = –0.029) and participation in technical guidance for primary public health services (β' = –0.054) were associated with lower overall job satisfaction (all P<0.05). Random forest model analysis showed that the top five influencing factors in the importance ranking of job satisfaction among public health service personnel in Shanxi province were occupational identity, talent incentive mechanism, talent promotion mechanism, talent evaluation model, and personnel treatment guarantee, with %IncMSE values and IncNodePurity values of 41.94 and 804.52, 30.51 and 1464.13, 30.45 and 1454.41, 29.66 and 1681.55, and 23.78 and 988.18, respectively.

Conclusions The job satisfaction of public health service personnel in Shanxi province is at a medium-to-high level. Efforts to improve their job satisfaction can focus on enhancing occupational identity, providing on-demand vocational training opportunities, strengthening information technology construction, and improving talent team development.