Objective To investigate human resources for non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) prevention and control in centers for disease control and prevention (CDCs) at various administrative levels in China, and to provide evidences for developing policies and strengthening human resources construction in CDCs.

Methods We conducted a online questionnaire survey among 3 395 CDCs at province, municipality (prefecture), and county (district) level from September 2014 to March 2015. Descriptive statistics on the collected data was performed using SAS software.

Results Valid information were collected from 100%, 98.3%, and 97.7% of the CDCs at province, municipality, and county level, respectively. The total number of on-post staff engaged in NCDs prevention and control was 9 787, accounting for 5.0% of all of the on-post staff in the CDCs surveyed; 6 389 were full-time professionals, accounting for 3.2% of all of the on-post staff in the CDCs surveyed. The average age for the NCDs prevention and control-related on-post staff was 38.0 years and 36.3% of the staff were aged 25 to 34 years; the average years of professional work experience for the on-post staff was 4.9 years and 37.1% of the staff were engaged in NCDs prevention and control for 5 years or more. Of the on-post staffs engaged in NCDs prevention and control, 90.8% had the education background in medicine; 50.4% achieved academic certificate of bachelor or above; 87.6% obtained professional qualification certificate; and 11.5% were qualified for senior professional title.

Conclusion Human resources allocation has been improved in the prevention and control of NCDs, with the staff having a generally higher proportion of high academic certificate and professional title than those in other field of disease control, in recent years for CDCs in China; however, there are geographically and administratively regional differences in the allocation and the improvement still fails to meet the requirement to cope with the increased epidemic of NCDs in the country.