Latest Resources

The purpose of the document is to set out VSO’s position on continuing professional development (CPD) for health workers in Africa and Asia. It aims to guide future policy development around health training and capacity building of health workers and to draw specifically on significant learning over the past few years from VSO’s health and HIV and AIDS programs. [from author]

This publication advocates for continuing professional development (CPD) as essential for updating skills and the development of a professional ethos for all health staff cadres,including volunteers. It argues that planned, cost effective CPD is essential if national programs are to achieve the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and move towards providing universal health coverage for the whole population. [adapted from author]

This study tested a workforce projection model in the Netherlands by comparing the ex-post projected number of general practitioners with the observed number of general practitioners between 1998 and 2011. [adapted from abstract]

This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of self-reported occupational exposure to HIV among health care workers and explore factors that influence the practice of managing occupational exposure to HIV by health care workers in Tanzania. [from abstract]

Following a recent review suggesting that cost-effectiveness evaluations of adherence interventions for chronic diseases are rare, and that the methodology of such evaluations is poorly described in the literature, this manuscript presents the study protocol for a multi-centre trial evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of AIMS among a heterogeneous sample of patients. [from abstract]

The authors aimed to review the literature on absenteeism from a health system manager’s perspective to inform needed work on this topic and to develop a typology of definitions that might be useful to classify different forms of absenteeism and identify factors associated with absenteeism. [adapted from abstract]

The aim in this study was to identify how nurses affiliated with nursing education institutions perceive the challenges nursing education is facing in Angola. [from abstract]

This cross-sectional study evaluated the effect of three influenza vaccination promotional strategies on medical students’ intention to get vaccinated and associated factors. It also concludes that given previous vaccination is a factor associated with the intention to get vaccinated, education on vaccination of health care workers should begin while they are students. [adapted from abstract]

This protocol outlines a controlled before and after study that will examine the effect of a pay-for-performance incentive program on quality, coverage, and cost of targeted maternal and newborn healthcare services and selected non-targeted services at facilities in Tanzania. [adapted from abstract]

This study assessed whether brief counselling from family doctors trained to respond to women identified through intimate partner violence screening would increase women’s quality of life, safety planning and behavior, and mental health. [from summary]

This article describes the early outcomes, achievements, and challenges from an initiative that hired university graduates without training in health information and provided on-the-job training and mentoring to create a new cadre of health worker in order to address the shortage of health information personnel within Botswana. [adapted from abstract]

This work explored perceptions of the roles of Kenyan non-physician clinicians in typical health system settings. [adapted from abstract]

The Ministry of Health in Zambia developed a strategy to integrate community health workers into national health plans by creating a new group of community health assistants. The aim of the paper is to analyse the policy development process and the factors that influenced its evolution and content. [adapted from abstract]

This study reviewed the evidence for the use of mobile technology by community health workers to identify opportunities and challenges for strengthening health systems in resource-constrained settings. [from abstract]

This template is intended to assist countries and other stakeholders to identify relevant HRH commitments by mapping out the most effective interventions and their interrelatedness to improve the situation of HRH. It draws on the WHO Code, and the different policy documents that Member States have endorsed that call for action on HRH. [adapted from author]

The main objective of this study was to document the prevalence and disease spectrum of latex allergy, a common occupational disease among healthcare workers who use latex gloves, at Mankweng Hospital, Limpopo Province, South Africa. [adapted from author]

The focus of this review was to determine what cultural and learning factors need to be considered when developing a curriculum for South Pacific pharmaceutical health personnel who work across a range of practice environments. [from abstract]

This report is an evaluation of integrated management of childhood illness, a strategy to reduce mortality and morbidity in children under 5 years by improving health workers’ case management of common and serious illnesses at primary health care level, in two provinces of South Africa. [adapted from abstract]

This survey aimed to consolidate practices for identifying and processes for managing students who fail communication assessments designed to test a doctor’s ability to communicate effectively (with patients, relatives, advocates and healthcare colleagues) across all UK medical schools. [adapted from abstract]

This paper describes the rural clinical attachment experiences of medical students, illustrates that forces affecting such experiences cannot be predicted readily, and highlights that a rural clinical attachment can be of value, irrespective of whether or not the student chooses to practice in a rural area. [from author]

This article presents qualitative research used to inform the development of a screening tool as a potential strategy to identify and respond to gender based violence (GBV) for females in humanitarian settings. The findings suggest that routine GBV screening by skilled service providers offers a strategy to confidentially identify and refer survivors to needed services within refugee settings, potentially enabling survivors to overcome existing barriers. [adapted from author]

This study evaluated the impact of a brief educational intervention in cardiovascular prevention in primary care physicians’ prescribing behavior regarding statins beyond their participation in a randomized controlled trial. [from abstract]

This article studied the relation between medical student participant learning styles and participation in live and distance education and the value that participants place on these two methodologies. [adapted from abstract]

The objectives of this paper are to identify the factors associated with higher knowledge and confidence in providers at the commencement of a training on post-rape care and to reflect on the implications of this for training and other efforts being made to improve services. [from abstract]

This study evaluated the effect of multimedia training tool to encourage competent, compassionate, and confidential clinical care for sexual assault survivors in low-resource settings on healthcare providers’ attitudes, knowledge, confidence, and practices in four countries. [adapted from abstract]