Evaluation of emergency management capacity for public health emergencies using entropy weight-TOPSIS method

Objective  To assess the current status and regional disparities in emergency management capacity for public health emergencies in provinces of Central and Southern China and to provide guidance for provincial-level evaluation and optimization strategies.

Methods  An emergency management of public health emergencies evaluation index system was constructed based on the full-cycle concept of emergency management. The entropy weight method was employed to determine the weights of each indicator, and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution(TOPSIS)was used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the emergency management capacity of six provinces or autonomous regions in Central and Southern China from 2017 to 2022.

Results  The evaluation system for emergency management of public health emergencies comprised 25 indicators across four dimensions: medical and health support capacity, risk prevention capacity, emergency response capacity, and recovery and reconstruction capacity. The entropy weighting results indicated that the indicator for the number of public health education activities had the highest comprehensive weight(0.077 1).According to the combined entropy weight-TOPSIS evaluation, the composite emergency management capacity index(C_i) for these six provinces or autonomous regions in Central and Southern China between 2017 and 2022 ranged from 0.155 5 to 0.728 3. Among these, Guangdong Province demonstrated the highest emergency management capacity in both 2022 and 2021, with C_i values of 0.712 2 and 0.728 3, respectively.

Conclusion  The overall emergency management capacity for public health emergencies in Central and Southern China was improved from 2017 to 2022. However, the notable disparities remained across regions, with uneven development across different capacity dimensions. It is recommended that the government implement targeted policies to optimize the allocation of emergency resources and enhance risk prevention capacity, thereby promoting more balanced regional development in emergency management.