A study on the cognitive preference of primary health workers for medical and defense integration based on discrete choice modeling

This study aims to examine the work preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for specific occupational attributes influencing primary healthcare personnel's engagement in healthcare-defense integration initiatives. Through quantitative analysis of these determinants, the research seeks to formulate evidence-based recommendations for optimizing the current integrated healthcare-defense primary service system. This study employed a discrete choice experiment methodology to investigate primary healthcare workers' preferences regarding healthcare-defense integration initiatives. Through systematic sampling of 380 practitioners across three urban settings in Guangdong Province, the research utilized advanced mixed-logit regression techniques to quantify preference heterogeneity and identify key determinants influencing occupational decision-making in integrated service systems. Of the six job attributes included in the study, all five, except for the closeness of departmental cooperation, had a significant effect on the choice of medical defense integration. The most important healthcare defense integration attribute was staffing, when the job was improved from no staffing to staffing, primary health workers were willing to give up 864.179 yuan per month (about 13.9% of their income) per month, and the next most important job attributes were career development opportunities, opportunities for training and further education, and weekly working hours. Grassroots health workers participating in the integration of health care and defense not only look at income and other economic incentives, other such as establishment, career development opportunities, training and further education opportunities, weekly working hours are equally important, in order to ensure the level of treatment, but also efforts should be made to improve other job attributes.