Situation and 15 years′ variation of overseas visits for official duty by personnel of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

  Objective  To examine the situation of overseas visits for official duty by personnel of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) during 2015 – 2019 and to compare the visits to those during 2005 – 2014 and to analyze development trends in international cooperation in the field of disease prevention and control.

  Methods  We retrieved archieve data on personnel, task, country or region of destination, and founding source for overseas visits for official duty dispatched by China CDC during 2015 – 2019. Statistical analysis on the data was performed with GraphPad Prism 8 software.

  Results  Totally 2 895 person-times of overseas visits for official duty were dispatched by China CDC during the 5-year period and 80.1% of the dispatched visitors were senior professionals. Of the 2 878 visiting professionals of China CDC, 59.1% were majoring in infectious disease prevention and control, 17.7% in technical support and management, 12.2% in chronic non-communicable disease prevention and control, and 11.0% in public health management, respectively. In terms of objectives of the overseas visits, 65.7% were to attend academic conferences; 14.3% were to have academic visit/scholar exchange/training; 6.7% were to be engaged in collaborative researches; 1.5% were to provide expert consultations, and 11.8% were to support academic research/emergency response abroad; the distribution for the objective of the overseas visits during the 5-year period was significantly different from that of the visits during 2005 – 2009 and 2010 – 2014 (χ² = 807.9, P < 0.001). The destinations of the 2 886 overseas visits included 102 countries and regions (excluding Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region and Taiwan regions); of the counties/regions of destination for the overseas visits, 60.0% and 40.0% were developed and developing countries/regions and 17.2% were countries/regions in Africa, with a significantly higher ratio than that during 2005 – 2009 and 2010 – 2014. For all the overseas visits, 57.8% and 23.0% were financially supported by domestic and foreign funding and 19.2% by combined funding. In comparison with that during 2005 – 2009 and 2010 – 2014, the proportion of the overseas visits financially supported by domestic funding and by combined funding increased significantly (χ² = 808.0, P < 0.001).

  Conclusion  During 2015 – 2019, the overseas visits for official duty dispatched by China CDC were mainly conducted by senior professionals majoring in infectious disease prevention and control and main missions of the visits were to attend academic conferences and the destinations of the visits were mainly developed countries. The majority of the visits were financially supported by domestic funding.