The mission of the CHPR is to promote evidence-based policy and its effectiveness and efficiency through vigorous empirical research. Major research areas include evaluation of health system reform, community health development, behavior change and disease control, and economic evaluation of health programs. At this time, a multi-disciplinary team has been established which covers epidemiology, health economics, health education and health promotion, sociology, and statistics. The research projects include Planning for Chinese Health Reform, Impact Evaluation of Community Health Reform, Behavior Change and Chronic Disease Control, Health Provider Behavior, the Impact Evaluation of HIV/AIDS Control project, Research on the Regulation of Antibiotic Use, and Major Illness and Poverty.

The CHPR's particular research approach is to integrate qualitative and quantitative research methods by specifying quantitative models based on theoretical frameworks through qualitative investigation. Therefore the CHPR's unique strength is quantitative research based on theory.