Characterization of collaborative management paths for public health at the county-level government in China: 3 cases based on fsQCA

Background: County-level governments (CLG) are the basic organizational units of China's administrative power. The collaborative management paths (CMP) for public health at the CLG carry a variety of pressures and are responsible for coordinating the allocation of resources, and need to be well developed in terms of their capacity structure. Method: This study defines the CMP of CLG in public health as six variables of policy resource: configuration capability, perception capability, insight capability, integration capability, learning capability, and innovation capability. This study incorporates the fsQCA algorithm to explore the non-linear relationship between the collaborative management capabilities of the CMP of CLG in public health and policy resources. Results: A configuration of the CMP of CLG for public health was identified (solution coverage 36.67%, solution consistency 98.24%). The CLG's CMP has full-time-phase characteristics, i.e., the diversion management time-phase is characterized by conventional and non-conventional management time-phase groupings, but the non-conventional management time-phase does not have a bottleneck level. CLG's CMP has 3 core elements (Integration, Learning, and Perception Capabilities) and 2 supporting elements (Innovation and Insight Capabilities). The bottleneck level analysis of CLG's CMP resulted in a 10% level of perceived capacity being required to achieve a 60% level of configured capacity. The sensitivity test of the CMP for CLG suggests that the pathway is robust. Conclusion: This study presents a framework for observing/interpreting the results of CLG as a managerial behavior (policy resource management) at the grassroots level of government from the perspective of CMP.