Abstract: A survey was made on attendees of three conferences (or training courses) on tropical disease prevention and control held by the National Institute of Parasitic Disease, China CDC from August 2016 to April 2017, by using questionnaires to collect information. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 software. A total of 256 questionnaires were distributed and 241 were valid. Among the respondents, 14.5% (35/241) had never heard of the term “global health”, 82.6% (199/241) had heard of it but did not understand the concept, and only 2.9% (7/241) were familiar with global health. The participants were significantly more familiar with epidemiology and health statistics than global health. There were 42.7% (103/241) respondents having correct understanding of the basic concept of global health, among them, the age group ≤35 had significantly higher percentage of correct understanding (53.8%, 56/104) than that in the group of age > 35 (34.3%, 47/137). In addition, 97.1% (233/240) of the respondents showed willingness to receive global health training. The top three demanded training contents were disease prevention and control strategies and techniques, technologies on experimental testing, diagnosis, research and development, and knowledge of health management. The top three demands for capacity improvement were global health vision, disease prevention and control experiences, and research and analysis capabilities. Trainings should be carried out primarily by on-site teaching, in an interactive teaching mode between trainers and trainees, inviting more teachers from foreign health systems. The extent of awareness on global health knowledge is challenging in the health personnel working in the prevention and control of tropical diseases in China, thus, it is urged to strengthen the training on global health to improve the capacity building.

Key words: Tropical disease, Global health, Training needs, China