Objective To explore the establishment of performance assessment indicators for the classification and grading of public health staff in district-level Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCs), and to provide a basis for such evaluations.

Methods Through literature review and group interviews, performance evaluation indicators were developed based on competency evaluation. Experts were invited to evaluate the weight of performance evaluation indicators for public health staff from different categories, with the average value used to represent the weight of each indicator.

Results Twenty-nine experts from universities in Shanghai, municipal CDCs, and district CDCs participated, yielding an expert authority coefficient of 0.86. The performance evaluation indicators for department managers were categorized into three levels, with 4 indicators at the primary level, 16 indicators at the secondary level, and 42 indicators at the tertiary level, while those for general staff included 4 primary indicators, 15 secondary indicators, and 36 tertiary indicators. Significant differences were observed in the weight coefficients of the primary indicators (internal operations, professional work, and learning and growth) between department managers and general staff. The top three secondary indicators for department managers were department management, monitoring and prevention, and level of expertise. For mid-level and senior staff, the top three secondary indicators were monitoring and prevention, level of expertise, and research work. The top three secondary indicators for junior staff were monitoring and prevention, professional expertise, and professional attitude. No significant statistical differences were found among tertiary indicators.

Conclusion The developed performance evaluation indicators are reliable. Staff at different levels and classifications should be evaluated using different performance evaluation standards to accurately reflect individual performance and contributions.