The pediatrician demands and gaps under the universal two-child policy / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

With the universal two-child policy implementation, the birth rate increased, posing challenges to pediatrician allocation. Based on the birth rate, we calculated pediatrician demands and gaps during the period from 2016 to 2020 by the method of health service demand. The results showed that except Beijing and Shanghai, the ped-iatrician supply and demand ratios are less than 0 . 80 and additional numbers of pediatricians ranging from 191 981 to 198 287 are needed to meet the service demands. We recommend increasing the number of pediatricians taking both national supply-demand ratios and gaps by rationally using reasonable enrolment quota and improving the treatment and other reasonable ways to increase pediatricians. In addition, we should enhance information disclosure and guid-ance, and improve the hierarchical hospital visit system to alleviate the pressure of big cities.