Limited education and training, and practical application but high potential demand of spatial epidemiology among public health postgraduates in China: a serial national cross-sectional study

The application of various spatial analysis techniques during the COVID-19 pandemic has improved public health educators and public health postgraduates understanding the role of spatial epidemiology. Yet, the situation and changes in education-and-training, practical application, and potential demand of spatial epidemiology were unclear in China. We aimed to reveal these issues among Chinese public health postgraduates during the early-and-late stages of COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a serial national cross-sectional study among public health postgraduates at Chinese universities in the early stage (October 2020 to February 2021) and the late stage (November 2022 to April 2023) of COVID-19 pandemic. We collected data by the WeChat-based questionnaire star survey system and compared the differences between the two surveys, using chi-square test for categorical data, and Mann-Whitney U-test for numeric data. Overall, we surveyed 3469 public health postgraduates from 76 universities, and 35.53% of universities offered spatial epidemiology course. Around 9.48% of postgraduates learned spatial epidemiology, and 65.44% hoped universities to deliver spatial epidemiology course. Compared with the early-stage survey, the proportion of universities offering spatial epidemiology courses increased numerically but not significantly (37.14% vs. 27.45%, P = 0.263), while the proportion of postgraduates having learned spatial epidemiology increased significantly (10.40% vs. 8.05%, P = 0.021). The learning degree [1.00 vs. 1.05, P = 0.545] and practical application degree [1.71 vs. 1.91, P = 0.889] still remained at low level. And the potential demand degree remained at relative high level, but decreased significantly [2.50 vs. 3.33, P < 0.001]. The proportion of offering spatial epidemiology course at Chinese universities, and the proportion and degree of learning-and-application of spatial epidemiology among public health postgraduates were low, while the potential demand was high throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. To address these issues and prepare for future pandemics, integrating spatial epidemiology into the compulsory curriculum system of public health education in China would be needed.