To analyze the epidemical characteristics and variation tendency of legal infectious diseases in a comprehensive hospital in Shanxi province over the past ten years and to provide scientific basis for the prevention and control measures against infectious diseases.

Data related to legal infectious diseases of patients treated in a comprehensive hospital in Shanxi province from January 2007 to December 2016 were collected for a retrospective analysis. The epidemiological characteristics, such as time, place, persons, aggregation status and development of the epidemics, were analyzed with Excel and SPSS 11.5 software.

A total number of 41 527 cases of legal infectious diseases were reported. Among them, there were 36 828 cases (88.68%) of class B infectious diseases, 3 076 cases (7.41%) of class C infectious diseases and 1 623 cases (3.91%) of other legally monitored infectious diseases. The total number of hepatitis B cases was 26 162 (63.00%), ranking the first in the past 10 years. The sex ratio of male to female was 1.31: 1. The top five infectious diseases were in the same order of male and female. Source of infectious disease patients was mainly the permanent residents of this province. The occupation with relatively high incidence was farmer (11 239 cases, 27.06%). In terms of transmission channels of infectious diseases, respiratory infectious diseases and hand-foot-mouth diseases were the major epidemic diseases in the juvenile and children groups, while blood-borne and sexually transmitted infectious diseases were the major epidemic diseases in the other groups.

Cases of infectious diseases in the hospital are relatively concentrated. According to the epidemic characteristics of infectious diseases, the respiratory infectious diseases and hand-foot-mouth diseases should be monitored and prevented on the teenagers and children population, while blood and sexually transmitted diseases should be intensively monitored on the other population.