Role of health strategy on clarification of department responsibility in maternal health care in Beijing and Shanghai

  Objective  To compare differences in clarification and assessability of department responsibility in maternal health care in Beijing and Shanghai municipality before and after the initiation of the health strategy.

  Methods  We systematically retrieved all maternal health care-related the policy documents issued by governmental agencies of Beijing (232 files) and Shanghai municipality (417 files) during 2016 – 2017. The texts of “task”, “responsibility” and “assessment” in all the documents were extracted for quantitative evaluation on the clarification and assessability of department responsibility in maternal health care.

  Results  After the initiation of health strategy in 2016, the clarification of department responsibility in maternal health care was promoted in both Beijing and Shanghai remarkably, with about 20% increased clarity indexes up to 57.8% and 62.7% in Beijing and Shanghai municipality. However, no obvious variation in the assessability of the implementation of department responsibility was observed in the two municipalities.

  Conclusion  After the initiation of health strategy, the clarification of department responsibility in maternal health care, especially the responsibility for key sectors, was significantly increased in Beijing and Shanghai municipality but the assessability of the implementation of the responsibility needs to be improved urgently in the two municipalities.