Aging village doctors in five counties in rural China: situation and implications
- PDF / 513,770 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 793.701 pts Page_size
- 115 Downloads / 252 Views
RESEARCH
Open Access
Aging village doctors in five counties in rural China: situation and implications Huiwen Xu, Weijun Zhang, Linni Gu, Zhiyong Qu, Zhihong Sa, Xiulan Zhang and Donghua Tian*
Abstract Background: The aging population, rapid urbanization, and epidemiology transition in China call for the improvement and adaptation of the health workforce, especially in underserved rural areas. The aging of village doctors (the former “barefoot doctors”) who have served the rural residents for many decades has become a warning signal for the human resources for health in China. This study aims to investigate the village doctors’ aging situation and its implications in rural China. Methods: The data reviewed were obtained from the baseline survey of a longitudinal study of rural health workforce in five counties in rural China in 2011. Using a stratified multi-stage cluster sampling process, the baseline data was collected through the self-administered structured Village Doctor Questionnaire. Descriptive analyses, correlation analyses, and multivariate linear regression with interaction terms were conducted with the statistics software Stata 12.0. Results: The average age of the 1,927 village doctors was 49.3 years (95% CI 48.8 to 49.9), 870 (45.2%) of whom were aging (50 years or older). Both the age and the recruitment time of the village doctors were demonstrated to have a bimodal distribution. A greater proportion of the male village doctors were aging. Furthermore, aging of the village doctors was significantly correlated to their education level, type of qualification, practicing methods, and their status as village clinic directors (P
Data Loading...
