At present, over 215 million people live outside their countries of birth, many of which are referred to as diaspora—those that live in host countries but maintain strong sentimental and material links with th...
Authors: Seble Frehywot, Chulwoo Park and Alexandra Infanzon
The World Health Organization’s global strategy on human resources for health includes an objective to align investment in human resources for health with the current and future needs of the population. Althou...
Authors: Susan Ahern, Noel Woods, Olivier Kalmus, Stephen Birch and Stefan Listl
Nurses and midwives are the largest component of the health workforce in many countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) together with its partners facilitates the joint development of strategic policy gui...
Authors: Onyema Ajuebor, Carey McCarthy, Yin Li, Sumaya Mohamed Al-Blooshi, Nonhlanhla Makhanya and Giorgio Cometto
Medical tourism, which involves cross-border travel to access private, non-emergency medical interventions, is growing in many Latin American Caribbean countries. The commodification and export of private heal...
Authors: Valorie A. Crooks, Ronald Labonté, Alejandro Ceron, Rory Johnston, Jeremy Snyder and Marcie Snyder
Gender equity remains a challenge across various labor markets with the health market being no exception. Despite the increased influx of women into health professions, horizontal and vertical occupational gen...
Authors: Nour El Arnaout, Rana F. Chehab, Bayan Rafii and Mohamad Alameddine
While considerable attention has been given to improving health workforce planning practice, few articles focus on the relationship between health workforce governance and health reform. By outlining a sequenc...
Medical education is critical and the first step to foster the competence of a physician. Unlike developed countries, China has been adopting a system of multi-tiered medical education to training physicians, ...
Early retirement (before age 65) is the norm among registered nurses (RNs) and allied health professionals (AHPs) employed in Canada’s public system. As a country whose population is rapidly aging, it is in Ca...
Authors: Sarah Hewko, Trish Reay, Carole A. Estabrooks and Greta G. Cummings
In 2006, the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRA) in relation to nursing services in the region. This agreement was part of a set of ...
Authors: Noriko Fujita, Sadatoshi Matsuoka, Kyoko Koto-Shimada, Megumi Ikarashi, Indrajit Hazarika and Anthony B. Zwi
The critical role pharmacists play in the healthcare system necessitates close monitoring of their supply, distribution, and competencies. This is especially relevant considering the global increase in the dem...
Authors: Mohamad Alameddine, Karen Bou Karroum and Mohamad Ali Hijazi
Women constitute 70% of the global health and social care workforce, but important knowledge gaps persist to effectively support decision making to optimize gender equity. In this Editorial introducing a new t...
The lack of appropriate policies and procedures to ensure transparent transfer practices is an important source of dissatisfaction among health workers in low- and middle-income countries. In order to alter an...
Authors: A. C. S. Heerdegen, M. Bonenberger, M. Aikins, P. Schandorf, P. Akweongo and K. Wyss
Australian Aboriginal people have higher rates of unemployment and poorer health than non-Aboriginal Australians. Historical segregation policies that spanned 60 years negatively impacted workforce inclusion. ...
Authors: C. A. Opie, B. Gibson-Thorpe, C. Lees and H. M. Haines
In order to analyse the institutional capacity for health workforce policy development and implementation in countries in the South-East Asia region, the WHO facilitated a cross-sectional analysis of functions...
Authors: Giorgio Cometto, Esther Nartey, Tomas Zapata, Mikiko Kanda, Yunus Md, Kavita Narayan, Kirana Pritasari, Aishath Irufa, Ramkrishna Lamichhane, Dileep De Silva and Thinakorn Noree
As population health needs become more complex, addressing those needs increasingly requires the knowledge, skills, and judgment of multiple types of human resources for health (HRH) working interdependently. ...
Authors: Adrian MacKenzie, Gail Tomblin Murphy and Rick Audas
In sub-Saharan Africa, shortages of trained healthcare workers and limited resources necessitate innovative and cost-effective approaches for training, supervising, and mentoring. This qualitative case study d...
Authors: V. Bertman, F. Petracca, B. Makunike-Chikwinya, A. Jonga, B. Dupwa, N. Jenami, A. Nartker, L. Wall, L. Reason, P. Kundhlande and A. Downer
Despite increasing popularity among health organizations of pay for performance (P4P) for the provision of comprehensive care for chronic non-communicable diseases, evidence of its effectiveness in improving h...
Authors: Neeru Gupta, René Lavallée and James Ayles
Zimbabwe experienced a socio-economic crisis from 1997 to 2008 which heavily impacted all sectors. In this context, human resource managers were confronted with the challenge of health worker shortage in rural...
Authors: Wilson Mashange, Tim Martineau, Pamela Chandiwana, Yotamu Chirwa, Vongai Mildred Pepukai, Shungu Munyati and Alvaro Alonso-Garbayo
Although there is extensive literature on the different aspects of physician job satisfaction worldwide, existing questionnaires used to measure job satisfaction in developed countries (e.g., the Job Satisfact...
Authors: Chatila Maharani, Hanevi Djasri, Andreasta Meliala, Mohamed Lamine Dramé, Michael Marx and Svetla Loukanova
Dental services can be provided by the oral health therapy (OHT) workforce and dentists. This study aims to quantify the potential cost-savings of increased utilisation of the OHT workforce in providing dental...
Authors: Tan Minh Nguyen, Utsana Tonmukayakul and Hanny Calache
The recession of 2008 triggered large-scale emigration from Ireland. Australia emerged as a popular destination for Irish emigrants and for Irish-trained doctors. This paper illustrates the impact that such an...
Authors: Niamh Humphries, John Connell, Joel Negin and James Buchan
The number of oral health technicians (OHT) in the public health service in Brazil is lower than the number of training school graduates. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate possible factors a...
Authors: Ana Cláudia Pereira dos Santos Cruz, Simone Dutra Lucas, Lívia Guimarães Zina, Rafaela da Silveira Pinto and Maria Inês Barreiros Senna
The geographic distribution of health workers is a pervasive policy concern. Many governments are responding by introducing financial incentives to attract health care workers to locate in areas that are under...
Authors: Michelle McIsaac, Anthony Scott and Guyonne Kalb
Similar to many other low- and middle-income countries, public private partnership (PPP) in the training of the health workforce has been emphasized since the launch of the 1990s’ health sector reforms in Tanz...
As part of measures to address severe shortage of nurses and midwives, Ghana embarked on massive scale-up of the production of nurses and midwives which has yielded remarkable improvements in nurse staffing le...
Authors: James Avoka Asamani, Ninon P. Amertil, Hamza Ismaila, Akugri Abande Francis, Margaret M. Chebere and Juliet Nabyonga-Orem
Recruiting and retaining students in preventive medical (PM) specialties has never been easy; one main challenge is how to select appropriate students with proper motivation. Understanding how students perceiv...
Authors: Van Anh Thi Nguyen, Karen D. Könings, E. Pamela Wright, Hoat Ngoc Luu, Albert J. J. A. Scherpbier and Jeroen J. G. van Merriënboer
This study sought to identify, as far as possible, the extent of the specialist children’s nursing workforce in five selected African countries. Strengthening children’s nursing training has been recommended a...
Authors: Natasha North, Maylene Shung-King and Minette Coetzee
There has been a welcome emphasis on gender issues in global health in recent years in the discourse around human resources for health. Although it is estimated that up to 75% of health workers are female (Wor...
Authors: Zahra Zeinali, Kui Muraya, Veloshnee Govender, Sassy Molyneux and Rosemary Morgan
Poor distribution of already inadequate numbers of health professionals seriously constrains equitable access to health services in low- and middle-income countries. The Senegalese Government is currently deve...
Authors: Ayako Honda, Nicolas Krucien, Mandy Ryan, Ibrahima Ska Ndella Diouf, Malick Salla, Mari Nagai and Noriko Fujita
Between 1986 and 2006, the Acholi region in Uganda experienced armed conflict which disrupted the health system including human resources. Deployment of health workers during and after conflict raises many cha...
Authors: Richard Mangwi Ayiasi, Elizeus Rutebemberwa and Tim Martineau
Workforce shortages, particularly in rural areas, limit the delivery of health services in Zambia. Policymakers and researchers co-created this study to identify potential non-monetary employment incentives an...
Authors: Margaret L. Prust, Aniset Kamanga, Lupenshyo Ngosa, Courtney McKay, Chilweza Musonda Muzongwe, Mazuba Tamara Mukubani, Roy Chihinga, Ronald Misapa, Jan Willem van den Broek and Nikhil Wilmink
Supportive supervision is considered critical to community health worker programme performance, but there is relatively little understanding of how it can be sustainably done at scale. Supportive supervision i...
Postpartum hemorrhage and neonatal asphyxia are leading causes of maternal and neonatal mortality, respectively, that occur relatively rarely in low-volume health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa. Rare occurre...
Authors: Emma Williams, Eva S. Bazant, Samantha Holcombe, Innocent Atukunda, Rose Immaculate Namugerwa, Kayla Britt and Cherrie Evans
There is a dearth of evidence on the causal effects of different care delivery approaches on health system satisfaction. A better understanding of public satisfaction with the health system is particularly imp...
Authors: Elysia Larson, Pascal Geldsetzer, Eric Mboggo, Irene Andrew Lema, David Sando, Anna Mia Ekström, Wafaie Fawzi, Dawn W. Foster, Charles Kilewo, Nan Li, Lameck Machumi, Lucy Magesa, Phares Mujinja, Ester Mungure, Mary Mwanyika-Sando, Helga Naburi…
Globally, there is renewed interest in and momentum for strengthening community health systems, as also emphasized by the recent Astana Declaration. Recent reviews have identified factors critical to successfu...
Authors: Smisha Agarwal, Karen Kirk, Pooja Sripad, Ben Bellows, Timothy Abuya and Charlotte Warren
Previous studies have focused on the relationship between increases in the health care workforce and child health outcomes, but little is known about how this relationship differs in contexts where economic gr...
Authors: Siyuan Liang, James Macinko, Dahai Yue and Qingyue Meng
Nurses play a significant role in healthcare systems. Their workplace experience can have an impact not only on nurses themselves, but also on patients and organizations, particularly in terms of quality of ca...
Authors: Marie-Annick Gagné, Carl-Ardy Dubois, Alexandre Prud’Homme and Roxane Borgès Da Silva
The 2013–2014 West African Ebola outbreak highlighted how the world’s weakest health systems threaten global health security and heralded huge support for their recovery. All three Ebola-affected countries had...
Authors: Barbara McPake, Prarthna Dayal and Christopher H. Herbst
Nursing practice is a key driver of quality care and can influence newborn health outcomes where nurses are the primary care givers to this highly dependent group. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, nursing work ...
Authors: Jacinta Nzinga, Jacob McKnight, Joyline Jepkosgei and Mike English
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is highly prevalent in American Samoa. Community health worker (CHW) interventions may improve T2DM care and be cost-effective. Current cost-effectiveness analyses (CEA) of CHW ...
Authors: Shuo J. Huang, Omar Galárraga, Kelley A. Smith, Saipale Fuimaono and Stephen T. McGarvey
Patient-centered care approach in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis care requires health worker safety that covers both being safe and feeling safe to conduct the services. Stigma has been argued as a barrier t...
Authors: Ari Probandari, Hary Sanjoto, Melani Ratih Mahanani, Luthfi Azizatunnisa and Sampir Widayati
Pre-eclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal death in Mozambique. Limited access to health care facilities and a lack of skilled health professionals contribute to the high maternal morbidity and mor...
Authors: Salésio Macuácua, Raquel Catalão, Sumedha Sharma, Anifa Valá, Marianne Vidler, Eusébio Macete, Mohsin Sidat, Khátia Munguambe, Peter von Dadelszen and Esperança Sevene
From 2006, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been developing Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) across key professions, including medicine, dentistry and nursing, that would facilitat...
Authors: Kristy Meng-Hsi Law, Vannarath Te and Peter S. Hill
Community health workers (CHWs) are an important component of the health workforce in many countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a guideline to support the integration of CHWs into healt...
Authors: Onyema Ajuebor, Giorgio Cometto, Mathieu Boniol and Elie A. Akl
There is ample evidence to indicate that community health workers (CHW) are valuable human resources for health in many countries across the globe, helping to fill the gap created by a chronic health workforce...
Authors: Said Ahmad Maisam Najafizada, Ronald Labonté and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault
The World Health Organization advocates that health workforce development is a continuum of three stages of entry, available workforce and exit. However, many studies have focused on addressing the shortage of...
This paper provides a narrative review that scopes and integrates the literature on the development and strengthening of the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health researcher workforce. The he...
Authors: Shaun C. Ewen, Tess Ryan and Chris Platania-Phung
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a rapidly developing high-income country that was formed from the union of seven emirates in 1971. The UAE has experienced unprecedented population growth coupled with increas...
Authors: Marília Silva Paulo, Tom Loney and Luís Velez Lapão
The capacity for high-income countries to supply enough locally trained doctors to minimise their reliance on overseas-trained doctors (OTDs) is important for equitable global workforce distribution. However, ...
Authors: Belinda O’Sullivan, Deborah J. Russell, Matthew R. McGrail and Anthony Scott
Foreign medical graduates (FMGs) have continued to render effective health care services to underserved communities in many high- and middle-income countries. In rural and disadvantaged areas of South Africa, ...
