Objective To investigate the awareness and application of the Hygienic Design Specification for Public Place (GB 37489.1-37489.5-2019) (hereinafter referred to as the Specification) among health supervisors.

Methods In March and April 2023, a multi-stage stratified proportional sampling method was used to sample health supervisors from health supervision institutions in one provincial capital city, one prefecture-level city, and one county in each of the 31 provinces (cities) across China. A questionnaire survey was conducted mainly in the awareness, training, application, and suggestions for revision of the provisions of the Specification.

Results A total of 617 health supervisors were surveyed, and the valid questionnaire rate was 100%. More than 96.6% of the survey respondents were aware of the Specification, and there were significant differences in the awareness rate between ages and years of experience; 66.9% of the health supervisors acquired the content and knowledge related to the Specification through meetings or training; most of the training and publicity work was sponsored by the center for disease control of the health supervision department. More than 96.6% of the survey respondents understood all five parts of the Specification; more than 90% of the survey respondents had used the Specification in their daily work, showing high compliance with the Specification; 7% of technical professionals considered that there might be some problems in the implementation process of the Specification.

Conclusion Health supervisors in public places have a high awareness rate of the Specification and high application compliance. The Specification is scientific and reasonable with good operability, and is basically adequate in the daily supervision work. However, it is still necessary to strengthen the publicity and training of the Specification, and some key technical indicators in the Specification need to be further refined.