Across the globe, a “fit for purpose” health professional workforce is needed to meet health needs and challenges while capitalizing on existing resources and strengths of communities. However, the socio-econo...
Authors: Björg Pálsdóttir, Jean Barry, Andreia Bruno, Hugh Barr, Amy Clithero, Nadia Cobb, Jan De Maeseneer, Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde, André-Jacques Neusy, Scott Reeves, Roger Strasser and Paul Worley
In sub-Saharan Africa, the capacity of human resources for health (HRH) managers to create positive practice environments that enable motivated, productive, and high-performing HRH is weak. We implemented a un...
Authors: Njoki Ng’ang’a, Mary Woods Byrne, Margaret E. Kruk, Aloisia Shemdoe and Helen de Pinho
Nigeria has suffered from several healthcare workers’ strikes in the past 36 months, involving all categories of health workers. Frequent healthcare workers’ strikes result in the closure of public healthcare ...
Authors: Obinna Ositadimma Oleribe, Iheaka Paul Ezieme, Olabisi Oladipo, Ezinne Patience Akinola, Deborah Udofia and Simon D. Taylor-Robinson
An imbalance of physician supply by medical specialty has been observed in most countries. In Korea, there is a greater tendency to avoid surgical specialties and specialty choices in nonclinical medicine, suc...
Authors: Yeon-Yong Kim, Un-Na Kim, Yon Su Kim and Jin-Seok Lee
Despite a global recognition from all stakeholders of the gravity and urgency of health worker shortage in Africa, little progress has been achieved to improve health worker coverage in many of the African hum...
Authors: John Vincent Fieno, Yoswa M. Dambisya, Gavin George and Kent Benson
India faces a critical shortage of government doctors in rural and underserved areas. Several measures have been introduced to address the shortage, but significant problems still remain. The main aim of the c...
Health workforce (HWF) planning and monitoring processes face challenges regarding data and appropriate indicators. One such area fraught with difficulties is labour activity and, more specifically, defining h...
Authors: Edmond Girasek, Eszter Kovács, Zoltán Aszalós, Edit Eke, Károly Ragány, Réka Kovács, Zoltán Cserháti and Miklós Szócska
With the critical shortage of government doctors serving in rural health centers in India, understanding the initial posting policies, processes, and practices become important from a retention point of view. ...
This study sought to better understand the drivers of migration, its consequences, and the various strategies countries have employed to mitigate its negative impacts. The study was conducted in four countries...
Authors: Gail Tomblin Murphy, Adrian MacKenzie, Benjamin Waysome, Joan Guy-Walker, Rowena Palmer, Annette Elliott Rose, Janet Rigby, Ronald Labonté and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):36
International recruitment is a common strategy used by high-income countries to meet their medical workforce needs. Ireland, despite training sufficient doctors to meet its internal demand, continues to be hea...
Authors: Ruairí Brugha, Sara McAleese, Pat Dicker, Ella Tyrrell, Steve Thomas, Charles Normand and Niamh Humphries
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):35
Health professionals, particularly doctors, nurses and midwives, are in high demand worldwide. Therefore, it is important to assess the future plans and likelihood of return of emigrating health professionals....
Authors: Sara McAleese, Barbara Clyne, Anne Matthews, Ruairí Brugha and Niamh Humphries
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):34
Projections indicate a global workforce shortage of approximately 4.3 million across the health professions. The need to ensure an adequate supply of health workers worldwide has created a context for the incr...
Authors: Franklin A. Shaffer, Mukul Bakhshi, Julia To Dutka and Janice Phillips
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):31
The relevance and effectiveness of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Personnel will be reviewed by the World Health Assembly in 2015. The origins of the Code of Practice and t...
Authors: Remco van de Pas, Linda Mans, Giulia de Ponte and Yoswa Dambisya
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):30
Medical workforce shortages represent a major challenge in low- and middle-income countries, including those in Africa. Despite this, there is a dearth of information regarding the location and practice of Afr...
Authors: Miliard Derbew, Adam D. Laytin and Rochelle A. Dicker
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):29
Medical diaspora options, including the engagement of expatriate physicians in development efforts within their home country, are being called for to reverse the effects of brain drain from developing countrie...
Authors: Fayrouz Mohammed Abdalla, Maye Abu Omar and Elsheikh Elsiddig Badr
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):28
The negative consequences of the brain drain of sub-Saharan African health workers for source countries are well documented and include understaffed facilities, decreased standards of care and higher workloads...
The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (hereafter the WHO Code) was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2010 as a voluntary instrument to address challenges of...
Authors: Ayat Abuagla and Elsheikh Badr
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):26
The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel was implemented in May 2010. The present commentary offers some insights into what is known about the Code five years on, as...
Authors: Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Ronald Labonté, Corinne Packer, Vivien Runnels and Gail Tomblin Murphy
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):25
According to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Poland has one of the lowest numbers of nurses (5.2) per 1000 inhabitants among 28 EU countries. The migration of nurses from P...
Authors: Rafał Szpakowski, Patrycja W. Zając, Grażyna Dykowska, Zofia Sienkiewicz, Anna Augustynowicz and Aleksandra Czerw
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):24
The World Health Organization’s Global Code on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel urges Member States to observe fair recruitment practices and ensure equality of treatment of migrant and domest...
Authors: Ella Tyrrell, Conor Keegan, Niamh Humphries, Sara McAleese, Steve Thomas, Charles Normand and Ruairí Brugha
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):23
The Romanian health system is struggling to retain its health workers, who are currently facing strong incentives for migration to Western European health systems. Retention issues, coupled with high levels of...
Authors: Ligia Paina, Marius Ungureanu and Victor Olsavszky
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):22
No study has examined the longitudinal trends in National Council Licensure Exam for Registered Nurse (NCLEX-RN) applicants and pass rates among internationally-educated nurses (IENs) seeking to work in the Un...
Authors: Allison Squires, Melissa T. Ojemeni and Simon Jones
Citation:Human Resources for Health
2016
14(Suppl 1):21
This study used the global WageIndicator web survey to answer the following research questions: (RQ1) What are the migration patterns of health workers? (RQ2) What are the personal and occupational drivers of ...
Authors: Daniel H. de Vries, Stephanie Steinmetz and Kea G. Tijdens
Over the last decade, Canada has been one of the top destination countries for internationally educated health professionals (IEHPs). After arrival, many struggle to professionally recertify and secure employm...
Authors: Christine L. Covell, Elena Neiterman and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault
Education, regulation and association (ERA) are the supporting pillars of an enabling environment for midwives to provide quality care. This study explores these three pillars in the 73 low- and middle-income ...
Authors: Sofia Castro Lopes, Andrea Nove, Petra ten Hoope-Bender, Luc de Bernis, Martha Bokosi, Nester T. Moyo and Caroline S. E. Homer
Effective performance appraisal systems can not only motivate employees to improve performance but also be important for the performance of organizations. However, the appraisal systems in civil services calle...
Nurses form the largest share of India’s health workforce. This paper explores the relationship between nurses’ pre-service education and labor market aspirations. It investigates supply-side factors shaping s...
Factors that influence performance of community health workers (CHWs) delivering health services are not well understood. A recent logic model proposed categories of support from both health sector and communi...
Authors: Daniela C. Rodríguez and Lauren A. Peterson
Northern Uganda suffered 20 years of conflict which devastated lives and the health system. Since 2006, there has been investment in reconstruction, which includes efforts to rebuild the health workforce. This...
Authors: Justine Namakula, Sophie Witter and Freddie Ssengooba
The need to retain health personnel is a policy challenge undermining health system reform of the 21st century. The need to resolve this global health workforce crisis resulted in the First Global Forum on Hum...
Authors: Bernard Hope Taderera, Stephen Hendricks and Yogan Pillay
This study sought to assess actions which Indonesia, Sudan, and Tanzania took to implement the health workforce commitments they made at the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health (HRH) in November 2...
Authors: Gilles Dussault, Elsheikh Badr, Hartiah Haroen, Martin Mapunda, Achmad Soebagja Tancarino Mars, Kirana Pritasari and Giorgio Cometto
Addressing the shortage of health service providers (doctors and nurses) in rural health centres remains a huge challenge. The lack of motivation of health service providers to serve in rural areas is one of t...
Authors: Bhaskar Purohit, Abhishek Maneskar and Deepak Saxena
Gender discrimination and inequality in health professional education (HPE) affect students and faculty and hinder production of the robust health workforces needed to meet health and development goals, yet HP...
Authors: Constance Newman, Crystal Ng, Sara Pacqué-Margolis and Diana Frymus
In Australia, the approach to health workforce planning has been supply-led and resource-driven rather than need-based. The result has been cycles of shortages and oversupply. These approaches have tended to u...
Female doctors in Hungary have worse indicators of physical and mental health compared with other professional women. We aimed to cast light on possible indicators of mental health, workload, and burnout of fe...
Authors: Zsuzsa Győrffy, Diana Dweik and Edmond Girasek
With a global target set at reducing vision loss by 25% by the year 2019, sub-Saharan Africa with an estimated 4.8 million blind persons will require human resources for eye health (HReH) that need to be avail...
Authors: Paul Courtright, Wanjiku Mathenge, Amir Bedri Kello, Colin Cook, Khumbo Kalua and Susan Lewallen
There is a broad consensus and evidence that shows qualified, accessible, and responsive human resources for health (HRH) can make a major impact on the health of the populations. At the same time, there is wi...
Authors: Zohra S. Lassi, Nabiha B. Musavi, Blerta Maliqi, Nadia Mansoor, Andres de Francisco, Kadidiatou Toure and Zulfiqar A. Bhutta
This paper describes a rapid assessment of Cambodia’s current system for regulating its health professions. The assessment forms part of a co-design process to set strategic priorities for strengthening health...
Authors: David Clarke, Jan Duke, Tana Wuliji, Alyson Smith, Keat Phuong and Un San
An effective health workforce is essential for achieving health-related new Sustainable Development Goals. Odisha, one of the states in India with low health indicators, faces challenges in recruiting and reta...
Authors: Shridhar Kadam, Srinivas Nallala, Sanjay Zodpey, Sanghamitra Pati, Mohammad Akhtar Hussain, Abhimanyu Singh Chauhan, Sovesh Das and Tim Martineau
Brazil has experienced difficulties in attracting health professionals (especially doctors and nurses) to practice at the primary health care (PHC) level and in rural and remote areas. This study presents two ...
Authors: Megan Ireland, Luciana Cavalini, Sabado Girardi, Edson C. Araujo and Magnus Lindelow
The Ebola epidemic exposed the weak state of health systems in West Africa and their devastating effect on frontline health workers and the health of populations. Fortunately, recent reviews of mobile technolo...
Authors: Akaninyene Otu, Bassey Ebenso, Okey Okuzu and Egbe Osifo-Dawodu
The shortage of physicians in rural areas and in some specialties is a societal problem in Japan. Expensive tuition in private medical schools limits access to them particularly for students from middle- and l...
Sierra Leone has faced a shortage and maldistribution of staff in its post-conflict period. This long-standing challenge is now exacerbated by the systemic shock and damage wrought by Ebola. This study aimed t...
Authors: Haja R. Wurie, Mohamed Samai and Sophie Witter
In the United Republic of Tanzania, as in many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, staff shortages in the healthcare system are a persistent problem, particularly in rural areas. To explore staff shortages and ways...
Authors: Aloisia Shemdoe, Godfrey Mbaruku, Angel Dillip, Susan Bradley, JeJe William, Deborah Wason and Zoe Jane-Lara Hildon
Clinical officers (COs), a mid-level cadre of health worker, are the backbone of healthcare provision in rural Kenya. However, the vacancy rate for COs in rural primary healthcare facilities is high. Little is...
Authors: Toshio Takemura, Karina Kielmann and Duane Blaauw
Despite impressive decreases in under-five mortality, progress in reducing maternal and neonatal mortality in Tanzania has been slow. We present an evaluation of a cadre of maternal, newborn, and child health ...
Authors: Amnesty E. LeFevre, Rose Mpembeni, Dereck Chitama, Asha S. George, Diwakar Mohan, David P Urassa, Shivam Gupta, Isabelle Feldhaus, Audrey Pereira, Charles Kilewo, Joy J Chebet, Chelsea M Cooper, Giulia Besana, Harriet Lutale, Dunstan Bishanga, Emmanuel Mtete…
Despite considerable evidence showing the importance of the nursing and midwifery workforce, there are no systematic reviews outlining how these cadres are best supported to provide universal access and reduce...
Authors: A. J. Dawson, A. M. Nkowane and A. Whelan