title: Trend in distribution of primary health care professionals in Jiangsu province of eastern China.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Since the late 1990 s, the Chinese government has carried out several reforms on the primary health care, which is greatly improved but still left much to be desired, especially for the health workforces. The aim of this study was to analyze the number of health workforces and the trends in distribution of health workforces in Jiangsu province of eastern China from 2008 to 2012.
  
  
  METHODS
  The time trends in number and distribution of health professionals were compared in study period. Lorenz curves were plotted and Gini coefficient, Atkinson index and Theil index were calculated for inequalities in the distribution of health workforces to population and area.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The number of health workforces increased every year and the inequality in the distribution of health workforces showed a decline trend from 2008 to 2012. After 2009, these trends changed more rapidly. There was the disproportionality between physicians and nurses. The values of three inequality indicators based on area were larger than those based on population.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The health reform in 2009 might play an important role in increasing the number of health workforces and improving the distribution of health workforces in primary health care facilities. The disproportionality between physicians and nurses was related to the shortage of number of nurses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Administration, Huai'an First People's Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, 6 Beijing West Road, Huai'an, Jiangsu, 223300, China. nj_xukang@126.com.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Southeast University, 87 Dingjia Bridge, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210009, China. njkjzh@163.com.
authors.forename: Kaijin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, 818 Tianyuan East Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211166, China. wd198654@126.com.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, 818 Tianyuan East Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211166, China. lzhou@njmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006280:Health Workforce / Q000639:trends*; D054625:Healthcare Disparities / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D058007:Physicians, Primary Care / Q000600:supply & distribution; D059017:Primary Care Nursing; D011320:Primary Health Care