Articles

Long working hours in the healthcare system of the Belo Horizonte municipality, Brazil: a population-based cross-sectional survey

Health personnel are key players in developing and improving healthcare systems, caring for individuals and their communities, and helping improve quality of life. However, these professionals are often expose...

Authors: Juliana M. Andrade, Ada A. Assunção and Mery N. S. Abreu

Does task shifting yield cost savings and improve efficiency for health systems? A systematic review of evidence from low-income and middle-income countries

Task shifting has become an increasingly popular way to increase access to health services, especially in low-resource settings. Research has demonstrated that task shifting, including the use of community hea...

Authors: Gabriel Seidman and Rifat Atun

Causes, consequences, and policy responses to the migration of health workers: key findings from India

This study sought to better understand the drivers of skilled health professional migration, its consequences, and the various strategies countries have employed to mitigate its negative impacts. The study was...

Authors: Margaret Walton-Roberts, Vivien Runnels, S. Irudaya Rajan, Atul Sood, Sreelekha Nair, Philomina Thomas, Corinne Packer, Adrian MacKenzie, Gail Tomblin Murphy, Ronald Labonté and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault

Training and deployment of medical doctors in Tanzania post-1990s health sector reforms: assessing the achievements

The shortage of a skilled health workforce is a global crisis. International efforts to combat the crisis have shown few benefits; therefore, more country-specific efforts are required. Tanzania adopted health...

Authors: Nathanael Sirili, Angwara Kiwara, Frumence Gasto, Isabel Goicolea and Anna-Karin Hurtig

Internationally educated nurses in Canada: predictors of workforce integration

Global trends in migration accompanied with recent changes to the immigrant selection process may have influenced the demographic and human capital characteristics of internationally educated nurses (IENs) in ...

Authors: Christine L. Covell, Marie-Douce Primeau, Kelley Kilpatrick and Isabelle St-Pierre

An examination of the causes, consequences, and policy responses to the migration of highly trained health personnel from the Philippines: the high cost of living/leaving—a mixed method study

Dramatic increases in the migration of human resources for health (HRH) from developing countries like the Philippines can have consequences on the sustainability of health systems. In this paper, we trace the...

Authors: Erlinda Castro-Palaganas, Denise L. Spitzer, Maria Midea M. Kabamalan, Marian C. Sanchez, Ruel Caricativo, Vivien Runnels, Ronald Labonté, Gail Tomblin Murphy and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault

Challenges and strategies to improve the availability and geographic accessibility of physicians in Portugal

Shortages of physicians in remote, rural and other underserved areas and lack of general practitioners limit access to health services. The aims of this article are to identify the challenges faced by policy a...

Authors: Ana Paula Cavalcante de Oliveira, Gilles Dussault and Isabel Craveiro

Survival analysis to measure turnover of the medical education workforce in Ethiopia

Until recently, there were only a few medical schools in Ethiopia. However, currently, in response to the apparent shortage in physician workforce, the country has made huge progress with respect to the expans...

Authors: Tsion Assefa, Damen Haile Mariam, Wubegzier Mekonnen and Miliard Derbew

Analysis of an international collaboration for capacity building of human resources for eye care: case study of the college-college VISION 2020 LINK

There is an extreme health workforce shortage in Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa. Shortage of eye care workers impedes effective implementation of prevention of blindness programs. The World Health Organ...

Authors: Nyawira Mwangi, Marcia Zondervan and Covadonga Bascaran

A rapid review of the rate of attrition from the health workforce

Attrition or losses from the health workforce exacerbate critical shortages of health workers and can be a barrier to countries reaching their universal health coverage and equity goals. Despite the importance...

Authors: Sofia Castro Lopes, Maria Guerra-Arias, James Buchan, Francisco Pozo-Martin and Andrea Nove

Incentives to change: effects of performance-based financing on health workers in Zambia

Performance-based financing (PBF) has been implemented in a number of countries with the aim of transforming health systems and improving maternal and child health. This paper examines the effect of PBF on hea...

Authors: Gordon C. Shen, Ha Thi Hong Nguyen, Ashis Das, Nkenda Sachingongu, Collins Chansa, Jumana Qamruddin and Jed Friedman

A systematic review of economic evaluations of CHW interventions aimed at improving child health outcomes

Evidence of the cost-effectiveness of community health worker interventions is pertinent for decision-makers and programme planners who are turning to community services in order to strengthen health systems i...

Authors: L. Nkonki, A. Tugendhaft and K. Hofman

Erratum to: Global Health Workforce Labor Market Projections for 2030

Authors: Jenny X. Liu, Yevgeniy Goryakin, Akiko Maeda, Tim Bruckner and Richard Scheffler

A cross-sectional study of the income sources of primary care health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the state system to remunerate health workers is poorly functional, encouraging diversification of income sources and corruption. Given the central role that health w...

Authors: Rishma Maini, David R. Hotchkiss and Josephine Borghi

Impact of the rural pipeline in medical education: practice locations of recently graduated family physicians in Ontario

The “rural pipeline” suggests that students educated in rural, or other underserviced areas, are more likely to establish practices in such locations. It is upon this concept that the Northern Ontario School o...

Authors: Elizabeth F. Wenghofer, John C. Hogenbirk and Patrick E. Timony

Balancing the health workforce: breaking down overall technical change into factor technical change for labour—an empirical application to the Dutch hospital industry

Well-trained, well-distributed and productive health workers are crucial for access to high-quality, cost-effective healthcare. Because neither a shortage nor a surplus of health workers is wanted, policymaker...

Authors: Jos L. T. Blank and Bart L. van Hulst

Health workforce metrics pre- and post-2015: a stimulus to public policy and planning

Evidence-based health workforce policies are essential to ensure the provision of high-quality health services and to support the attainment of universal health coverage (UHC). This paper describes the main ch...

Authors: Francisco Pozo-Martin, Andrea Nove, Sofia Castro Lopes, James Campbell, James Buchan, Gilles Dussault, Teena Kunjumen, Giorgio Cometto and Amani Siyam

Can we halt health workforce deterioration in failed states? Insights from Guinea-Bissau on the nature, persistence and evolution of its HRH crisis

Guinea-Bissau is one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries. Amid poverty, political turmoil and state withdrawal, its health workforce (HW) has been swamped for the last four decades in a deepen...

Authors: Giuliano Russo, Enrico Pavignani, Catia Sá Guerreiro and Clotilde Neves

Global Health Workforce Labor Market Projections for 2030

In low- and middle-income countries, scaling essential health interventions to achieve health development targets is constrained by the lack of skilled health professionals to deliver services.

Authors: Jenny X. Liu, Yevgeniy Goryakin, Akiko Maeda, Tim Bruckner and Richard Scheffler

Beyond patient care: the impact of healthcare reform on job satisfaction in the Ethiopian public healthcare sector

While healthcare reform has been a central attention for local governments, its impact on job satisfaction is poorly understood. This study aimed to determine the impact of healthcare reform on job satisfactio...

Authors: Tsegahun Manyazewal and Mokgadi C. Matlakala

An assessment of staffing needs at a HIV clinic in a Western Kenya using the WHO workload indicators of staffing need WISN, 2011

An optimal number of health workers, who are appropriately allocated across different occupations and geographical regions, are required to ensure population coverage of health interventions. Health worker sho...

Authors: B. Burmen, N. Owuor and P. Mitei

Human resources for health (and rehabilitation): Six Rehab-Workforce Challenges for the century

People with disabilities face challenges accessing basic rehabilitation health care. In 2006, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) outlined the global necessity to me...

Authors: Tiago S. Jesus, Michel D. Landry, Gilles Dussault and Inês Fronteira

Insights of health district managers on the implementation of primary health care outreach teams in Johannesburg, South Africa: a descriptive study with focus group discussions

Primary health care (PHC) outreach teams are part of a policy of PHC re-engineering in South Africa. It attempts to move the deployment of community health workers (CHWs) from vertical programmes into an integ...

Authors: Shabir Moosa, Anselme Derese and Wim Peersman

Physician migration at its roots: a study on the emigration preferences and plans among medical students in Romania

Migration of healthcare workers is receiving increased attention worldwide. In Europe, the creation of a border-free labor market and its expansion with the EU enlargements of 2004, 2007, and 2013 endowed heal...

Authors: Şoimita Mihaela Suciu, Codruta Alina Popescu, Mugur Daniel Ciumageanu and Anca Dana Buzoianu

The evolution of the medical workforce in Cape Verde since independence in 1975

Cape Verdean doctors have always graduated abroad. The first experience of pre-graduate medical education in Cape Verde begun in October 2015. Counting how many doctors Cape Verde has, knowing who they are, an...

Authors: A. P. Delgado, A. C. Tolentino and P. Ferrinho

A new resource for developing and strengthening large-scale community health worker programs

Large-scale community health worker programs are now growing in importance around the world in response to the resurgence of interest and growing evidence of the importance of community-based primary health ca...

Authors: Henry Perry, Lauren Crigler, Simon Lewin, Claire Glenton, Karen LeBan and Steve Hodgins

Linking communities to formal health care providers through village health teams in rural Uganda: lessons from linking social capital

Community-based programmes, particularly community health workers (CHWs), have been portrayed as a cost-effective alternative to the shortage of health workers in low-income countries. Usually, literature emph...

Authors: Laban Kashaija Musinguzi, Emmanueil Benon Turinawe, Jude T. Rwemisisi, Daniel H. de Vries, David K. Mafigiri, Denis Muhangi, Marije de Groot, Achilles Katamba and Robert Pool

Reasons why specialist doctors undertake rural outreach services: an Australian cross-sectional study

The purpose of the study is to explore the reasons why specialist doctors travel to provide regular rural outreach services, and whether reasons relate to (1) salaried or private fee-for-service practice and (...

Authors: Belinda G. O’Sullivan, Matthew R. McGrail and Johannes U. Stoelwinder

Closing the gender leadership gap: a multi-centre cross-country comparison of women in management and leadership in academic health centres in the European Union

Women’s participation in medicine and the need for gender equality in healthcare are increasingly recognised, yet little attention is paid to leadership and management positions in large publicly funded academ...

Authors: Ellen Kuhlmann, Pavel V. Ovseiko, Christine Kurmeyer, Karin Gutiérrez-Lobos, Sandra Steinböck, Mia von Knorring, Alastair M. Buchan and Mats Brommels

Factors associated with occupancy of pharmacist positions in public sector hospitals in Uganda: a cross-sectional study

Pharmacists are invaluable resources in health care. Their expertise in pharmacotherapy and medicine management both ensures that medicines of appropriate quality are available in health facilities at the righ...

Authors: Thomas Ocwa Obua, Richard Odoi Adome, Paul Kutyabami, Freddy Eric Kitutu and Pakoyo Fadhiru Kamba

Simulating future supply of and requirements for human resources for health in high-income OECD countries

As part of efforts to inform the development of a global human resources for health (HRH) strategy, a comprehensive methodology for estimating HRH supply and requirements was described in a companion paper. Th...

Authors: Gail Tomblin Murphy, Stephen Birch, Adrian MacKenzie and Janet Rigby

E-learning for research capacity strengthening in sexual and reproductive health: the experience of the Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research and the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization

Technological advancement has resulted in the increasing use of e-learning and online education, initially in high-income countries and increasingly in low- and middle-income countries.

Authors: Karim Abawi, Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli, Igor Toskin, Mario Philip Festin, Lynn Gertiser, Raqibat Idris, Hanan Hamamy, Moazzam Ali, Ameyo Masakhwe Bonventure, Marleen Temmerman and Aldo Campana

Physicians’ job satisfaction and motivation in a public academic hospital

Physician shortage is a global issue that concerns Brazil’s authorities. The organizational structure and the environment of a medical institution can hide a low-quality life of a physician. This study examine...

Authors: Paulo de Oliveira Vasconcelos Filho, Miriam Regina de Souza, Paulo Eduardo Mangeon Elias and Ana Luiza D’Ávila Viana

An economic-research-based approach to calculate community health-staffing requirements in Xicheng District, Beijing

A shortage of community health professionals has been a crucial issue hindering the development of CHS. Various methods have been established to calculate health workforce requirements. This study aimed to use...

Authors: Delu Yin, Tao Yin, Huiming Yang, Qianqian Xin, Lihong Wang, Ninyan Li, Xiaoyan Ding and Bowen Chen

Variability of staffing and staff mix across acute care units in Alberta, Canada

The health workforce has a crucial position in healthcare, and effective distribution of the workforce is one of the critical areas for healthcare improvement. This requires a proper understanding of the alloc...

Authors: Krishna Sharma, Stephanie E. Hastings, Esther Suter and Judy Bloom

Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: the mediating role of employee empowerment

Recent studies have revealed that nursing staff turnover remains a major problem in emerging economies. In particular, nursing staff turnover in Malaysia remains high due to a lack of job satisfaction. Despite...

Authors: Sang Long Choi, Chin Fei Goh, Muhammad Badrull Hisyam Adam and Owee Kowang Tan

Challenges for strengthening the health workforce in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic: perspectives from key stakeholders

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic is facing a critical shortage and maldistribution of health workers. Strengthening of the health workforce has been adopted as one of the five priorities of the National He...

Authors: Yi Qian, Fei Yan, Wei Wang, Shayna Clancy, Kongsap Akkhavong, Manithong Vonglokham, Somphou Outhensackda and Truls Østbye

Regional health workforce monitoring as governance innovation: a German model to coordinate sectoral demand, skill mix and mobility

As health workforce policy is gaining momentum, data sources and monitoring systems have significantly improved in the European Union and internationally. Yet data remain poorly connected to policy-making and ...

Authors: E. Kuhlmann, O. Lauxen and C. Larsen

What do health workers in Timor-Leste want, know and do? Findings from a national health labour market survey

The objectives of this study were to understand the labour market dynamics among health workers, including their preferences and concerns, and to assess the skills, competence and performance (i.e. the ‘know–d...

Authors: Xiaohui Hou, Sophie Witter, Rashid U. Zaman, Kay Engelhardt, Firdaus Hafidz, Fernanda Julia, Christophe Lemiere, Eileen B. Sullivan, Estanislau Saldanha, Toomas Palu and Tomas Lievens

Contribution of health workforce to health outcomes: empirical evidence from Vietnam

In Vietnam, a lower-middle income country, while the overall skill- and knowledge-based quality of health workforce is improving, health workers are disproportionately distributed across different economic reg...

Authors: Mai Phuong Nguyen, Tolib Mirzoev and Thi Minh Le

A systematic review of physician retirement planning

Physician retirement planning and timing have important implications for patients, hospitals, and healthcare systems. Unplanned early or late physician retirement can have dire consequences in terms of both pa...

Authors: Michelle Pannor Silver, Angela D. Hamilton, Aviroop Biswas and Natalie Irene Warrick

eSIP-Saúde: Mozambique’s novel approach for a sustainable human resources for health information system

Over the past decade, governments and international partners have responded to calls for health workforce data with ambitious investments in human resources information systems (HRIS). However, documentation o...

Authors: Keith P. Waters, Moises Ernesto Mazivila, Martinho Dgedge, Edgar Necochea, Devan Manharlal, Alexandra Zuber, Beatriz de Faria Leão, Debora Bossemeyer and Alfredo E. Vergara

The global pendulum swing towards community health workers in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review of trends, geographical distribution and programmatic orientations, 2005 to 2014

There has been a substantial increase in publications and interest in community health workers (CHWs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) over the last years. This paper examines the growth, geographica...

Authors: Helen Schneider, Dickson Okello and Uta Lehmann

Community health worker in hard-to-reach rural areas of Myanmar: filling primary health care service gaps

Myanmar is classified as critical shortage of health workforce. In responses to limited number of trained health workforce in the hard-to-reach and remote areas, the MOH trained the Community Health Worker (CH...

Authors: Angkana Sommanustweechai, Weerasak Putthasri, Mya Lay Nwe, Saw Thetlya Aung, Mya Min Theint, Viroj Tangcharoensathien and San Shway Wynn

Human resources for health strategies adopted by providers in resource-limited settings to sustain long-term delivery of ART: a mixed-methods study from Uganda

Human resources for health (HRH) constraints are a major barrier to the sustainability of antiretroviral therapy (ART) scale-up programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many prior approaches to HRH constraints have tak...

Authors: Henry Zakumumpa, Modupe Oladunni Taiwo, Alex Muganzi and Freddie Ssengooba

Factors associated with less-than-full-time working in medical practice: results of surveys of five cohorts of UK doctors, 10 years after graduation

The greater participation of women in medicine in recent years, and recent trends showing that doctors of both sexes work fewer hours than in the past, present challenges for medical workforce planning. In thi...

Authors: Shelly Lachish, Elena Svirko, Michael J. Goldacre and Trevor Lambert

An analysis of the global pharmacy workforce capacity

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there is a global healthcare workforce shortage of 7.2 million, which is predicted to grow to 12.9 million by 2035.

Authors: Ian Bates, Christopher John, Andreia Bruno, Pamela Fu and Shirin Aliabadi

Performance-based incentives may be appropriate to address challenges to delivery of prevention of vertical transmission of HIV services in rural Mozambique: a qualitative investigation

Performance-based incentives (PBIs) have garnered global attention as a promising strategy to improve healthcare delivery to vulnerable populations. However, literature gaps in the context in which an interven...

Authors: Roseanne C. Schuster, Octávio de Sousa, Jacqueline Rivera, Rebecca Olson, Delphine Pinault and Sera L. Young

A synthesis of recent analyses of human resources for health requirements and labour market dynamics in high-income OECD countries

Recognition of the importance of effective human resources for health (HRH) planning is evident in efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) to facilitate, ...

Authors: Gail Tomblin Murphy, Stephen Birch, Adrian MacKenzie, Stephanie Bradish and Annette Elliott Rose

Hospital preferences of nursing students in Korea: a discrete choice experiment approach

DCE was applied to investigate nursing students’ preferred hospital choice criteria and to investigate the trends in the trade-offs by calculating the marginal rate of substitution between these criteria. This...

Authors: Bo-hyun Park and YuKyung Ko