Table 1 Variable selection rationale and data sources
Indicator | Link with HRH production and rationale | Data sourcea |
|---|---|---|
Population characteristics | ||
Schooling | Average years of school of a country’s population. Educational access is a key to producing health workers. | CIA.gov |
Migrate | Migration rates of a country (in and out). Migration is known to affect health workforce supply. | CIA.gov |
Urbpop | Urban population percentage. Health workers are known to cluster in urban areas. | CIA.gov |
Population health status | ||
Beds-per-1000 people | Reflects health system capacity for worker employment. | WorldBank.org |
Public health exp | Healthcare human resources are the largest expenditure of a health system. | WorldBank.org |
Private health exp | WorldBank.org | |
Economic | ||
Gini | The Gini index is considered the best measure of economic inequality in a country. Economic inequality affects health outcomes because it may affect access to health workers. | WorldBank.org |
WB Income Level | The World Bank classifies countries by four income levels: low income, low middle-income, high middle-income, and high income. It is the best way to control for between country variations in economic status. | WorldBank.org |
Debtext | External debt affects what a country can spend on healthcare. | CIA.gov |
GDPPP | Gross Domestic Purchasing Power Parity is a proxy measure of national income that better accounts for inequality than GDP per capita. | CIA.gov |
Political System [35] | The Polity IV project divides political regimes into three categories: democracy, anocracy, and autocracy. This allows for categorical analysis of governance variables and reduces variability. | |
Social inequality | ||
GEM | The Gender Empowerment Measure is how the United Nations Development Program attempts to measure gender inequality. It is a composite measure of women’s relative economic income, participation in high-paying positions with economic power, and participation in governance. | UNDP.org |