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The human resources crisis in Africa is especially acute in the public health field. This paper describes the innovative aspects of the distance education program at the School of Public Health of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Strategies are proposed for scaling up such a program to meet the growing need in this essential area of health human resource capacity development in Africa. [adapted from abstract]

Ethiopia does not have a sufficient health care workforce to meet the population’s demand for services and the burden of disease. The objective of this project was to assess the usefulness and feasibility of collecting key participant and training information for monitoring and planning of HIV/AIDS services. This paper describes a project that uses training data to follow up with providers after training to assess whether they are still working in HIV/AIDS-related services. [adapted from introduction]

Health care workers in developing countries continue to lack access to basic, practical information to enable them to deliver safe, effective care. This paper provides the first phase of a broader literature review of the information and learning needs of health care providers in developing countries. [from abstract]

International recruitment of health professionals has been high on the policy debate agenda in recent years with increasing advocacy for the development of an international code of practice, notably the current draft for a WHO global code. This paper assesses the effect of the first national code, which has been in place in England since 2001 and as such has lessons for current initiatives in other countries and globally. [from introduction]

This paper seeks to provide nurses and nursing representatives with insights into the economic rationales for investing in health, health systems and the health workforce. It aims to support interaction and advocacy between nurses and those involved in public sector resource allocation such as governments, international agencies and private investors and health administrators. [from executive summary]

This article provides an overview of how new research in India and Nigeria offers innovative strategies to improve health care provider performance.

This policy brief explores the major challenges facing Kenya in the implementation of their Integrated Management of Childhood Illness strategy and looks at why it is failing to fulfill its potential to improve health care and reduce child mortality. [adapted from introduction]

This report discusses ways and means of improving the capacities of nurses and midwives and building consensus on a regional agenda to strengthen the contribution of nursing and midwifery services to rapidly scale up health services delivery and health outcomes in the African region. [adapted from introduction]

The health worker shortage in sub-Saharan Africa derives from many causes, yet the dynamics of entry into and exit from the health workforce in many of these countries remain poorly understood. This limits the capacity of national governments and their international development partners to design and implement appropriate intervention programmes. This paper provides some of this information through the first systematic estimates of health worker inflow and outflow in selected sub-Saharan African countries. [adapted from introduction]

This study involves the development and evaluation of training materials for provider-initiated HIV counseling and testing, HIV prevention and integrated primary HIV care and support for use by health care workers involved in the care of patients with TB at the primary health care clinic level in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [adapted from abstract]

This article reports on research that assessed international and national best practice in the selection of students for graduate entry medical courses in order to investigate correlations between medical student selection procedures and exposure to rural medical practice during medical training with choice of careers in rural medicine. Central to the study was the issue of the medical workforce shortage in Australia’s rural communities. [from introduction]

This study aims to undertake a national assessment of existing district management structures, competencies and current training programmes in order to inform a national strategy and plan to strengthen district management capacity to ensure effective delivery of primary health care in South Africa. [from introduction]

Tanzania is implementing the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), developed by the WHO and UNICEF to improve the management of child health at the primary care level in order to reduce child mortality in low and middle income countries. Workers in health facilities are trained in a structured IMCI case management course. IMCI also advocates the strengthening of the health system to facilitate practice of the skills acquired by health workers, as well as calling for improvement of household and community practices related to child health. [from executive summary]

Medical doctors and nurses in Bangladesh are concentrated in urban secondary and tertiary hospitals, while 70% of the population lives in rural areas. This situation has created a major challenge for the national health system, particularly for reducing the high maternal mortality rate, with fewer than 20% of births being attended by a skilled birth attendant. The Declaration of Safe Motherhood was desgined to address this issue, supportetd by a number of national programs and strategies. [from summary]

Ethiopia suffers from an acute shortage of health workers at every level, and rural areas in which 85% of the population live have been particularly chronically under-served. The Ministry of Health chose to focus on community level provision, initiating the Health Extension Programme in 2004. This is outlined in the current Health Sector Development Plan, which focuses on both human resource development and the construction and rehabilitation of facilities. [adapted from introduction]

Currently, a wide variety of community health workers are active in many antiretroviral treatment delivery sites. This article investigates whether present community health worker programmes for antiretroviral treatment are taking into account the lessons learnt from past experiences with community health worker programmes in primary health care and to what extent they are seizing the new antiretroviral treatment-specific opportunities. [from abstract]

This commentary outlines strategies the authors have found successful in aligning health education and training with local health needs in ways that demonstrate socially accountable outcomes for Vancouver Island, Canada. [adapted from abstract]

A Health Management Information System (HMIS) can be a powerful tool to make health care delivery more effective and far more efficient. This paper describes how an HMIS can also be used for organisational development and reports on the experiences of the HMIS programme of the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB) in Uganda. [from abstract]

This study explores the experience of conflict as perceived by Iranian hospital nurses in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. Although conflict-control approaches have been extensively researched throughout the world, no research-based data are available on the perception of conflict and effective resolutions among hospital nurses in Iran. [adapted from abstract]

Rural township health centres and urban community health centres play a crucial role in the delivery of primary health care in China. The limited availability and low qualifications of human resources in health are among the main challenges facing lower-level health facilities. This paper aims to analyse the mobility of health workers in township and community health centres. [from abstract]

Governments in developing countries are challenged to meet the health needs of their populations because of financial constraints, limited human resources, and weak health infrastructure. The private sector can help expand access to and quality of reproductive health services through its resources, expertise, and infrastructure.

The Mothers’ Support Group empowers mothers and mother-to-be to access peer-based support and make linkages to services such as family planning, infant-feeding, counseling, nutriotional guidance, antiretroviral therapy, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and health institutional delivery. [from author]

This paper reports on the first international attempt to investigate the migration intentions of pharmacy students and identify migration factors and their relationships. [from abstract]

Traditionally, faith-based health organisations have been important health care providers in many remote and other under-serviced areas. Currently, these facilities bear the brunt of the competition for scarce human resources. It is important for faith-based organisations to learn from recent experiences and from the creative ways in which colleagues seek to retain their health workers and improve quality of human resource management. [from preface]

Insufficient attention has been paid to understanding what determines the performance of health workers and how they make labor market choices. This paper reports on findings from focus group discussions with both health workers and users of health services in Ethiopia. We describe performance problems identified by both health users and health workers participating in the focus group discussions including absenteeism and shirking, pilfering drugs and materials, informal health care provision and illicit charging, and corruption.