[Competency of infectious disease epidemic response and influencing factors in task force members in county (district) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in China].

Objective: To understand the current status of epidemiological investigation task force construction and the performance of infectious disease epidemic response in county (district) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCs) in China, analyze the influencing factors and provide scientific evidence to improve the construction of grassroot epidemiological investigation task force. Methods: A survey was conducted in epidemiological investigation staff in county (district) CDCs in 31 provinces (autonomous regions/municipalities) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in China. A self-designed questionnaire was used to collect information based on the epidemiological dynamic data collection platform of China CDC. A descriptive epidemiological analysis was conducted, and multiple linear regression models were used to identify the factors associated with the performance of infectious disease epidemic response. Results: A total of 24 934 epidemiological investigation task force members from 2 897 county (district) CDCs were surveyed in the study. In the epidemiological investigation task force, women, those with bachelor's degree and public health workers accounted for 62.46%, 71.36%, and 49.05% respectively. Up to 91.72% of the task force members had participated in field epidemic response. The average score of awareness of epidemic investigation procedures was 60.00, while the average score of key skill proficiency in the investigation was 42.22. The epidemic response performance showed correlations with area, gender, age, education level, major, and field epidemiology training programs, those who had received longer training showed higher competency scores (all P<0.001). Conclusions: Progress has been made in the construction of epidemiological investigation task force in grass-root CDCs in China, but further improvements are needed, especially in the knowledge awareness and investigation skills of the task force. Field epidemiology training demonstrated substantial impact on the improvement of epidemic response performance, indicating that it is necessary to further strengthen the training in grassroot public health workers for the better response to infectious disease epidemics.