Latest Resources

This edition of Hotline, an HRH newletter focused on the needs of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in Africa, highlights resources, trainings and workshops, articles of interest and other information for FBO HRH pracitioners.

The main goal of reproductive health publications is to advance reproductive health outcomes. However, with this guidance, health professional staff also can learn to incorporate gender perspectives into every stage of the publication process and thus ensure that women and men in the audience receive and understand the information they need. [adapted from author]

This guide was developed in order to walk health professionals (including policy makers, program managers and health care providers) through the process of assessing information needs among individuals working at different levels of the health system; to share lessons learned and tips for various methodologies; and to provide tools that can be used or adapted in future assessments. [adapted from author]

This paper aims to outline the magnitude of unequal health workforce distribution in the developing countries; summarize the evidence on the factors that contribute to these imbalances; present a systematic set of policy interventions that are being implemented to address the problem of recruitment and retention of health workers in rural and remote regions of developing countries; and introduce the Discrete Choice Experiment to elicit health workers’ preferences and factors likely to increase uptake of a rural or remote job. [adapted from abstract]

This review describes international trends and approaches to regulatory and licensing systems and the integration of overseas trained healthcare professionals, including international medical graduates. [from summary]

This paper reviews complementary roles to those of traditional health workers, focusing on extended and expanded scopes of practice. It describes international trends and approaches to the planning and delivery of a health workforce that move away from a structure based on traditional roles and scopes of practice [from author]

Several studies have suggested policy options to reduce brain drain from Africa. The purpose of this paper is to review possible policies which can stem the impact of health professional brain drain from Africa. [from abstract]

Training health workers to use integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) guidelines can improve care for ill children in outpatient settings in developing countries. This article aimed to determine if the performance of IMCI-trained health workers deteriorated over 3 years. [from abstract]

This study aimed to assess health workers’ compliance with the procedures set in the focused antenatal care guidelines in rural Uganda, Tanzania and Burkina Faso; to compare the compliance within and among the three study sites; and to appraise the logistic and supply of the respective health facilities. [from abstract]

Enacting appropriate changes in both regulation and education of nurses requires engagement of national regulatory bodies, and key stakeholders such as government chief nursing officers, professional associations, and educators. The purpose of this research is to describe the perspectives and engagement of these stakeholders in advancing critical regulatory and educational reform in east, central, and southern Africa. [adapted from abstract]

This study tested a home-visits strategy to improve neonatal mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa by assessing the effect on all-cause neonatal mortality rate and essential newborn-care practices after community-based surveillance volunteers were trained to identify pregnant women in their community and to make two home visits during pregnancy and three in the first week of life to promote essential newborn-care practices. [adapted from summary]

These guidelines aim to provide evidence-based guidance to health-care providers on the appropriate responses to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women, including clinical interventions and emotional support. They also seek to raise awareness, among health-care providers and policymakers, of violence against women, to better understand the need for an appropriate health sector response to violence against women. [from summary]

This study measured the impact of integration of HIV care into primary care during a randomized controlled trial of task shifting and decentralization of HIV care in South Africa. [adapted from abstract]

This paper assesses the gender-based distribution of the United Republic of Tanzania’s health workforce cadres. [from abstract]

The following paper is a synthesis of the findings of researchers on training transfer and efficacy of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Program in Crisis and Post-Crisis Settings in the Asia Pacific Region, which was designed to address sexual and reproductive health in all phases of the disaster cycle, with a particular focus on preparedness and coordinated response and the importance of human resources for an effective response. [adapted from abstract]

This technical brief presents findings from a study that explored if and how health workforce measures differ between eastern and western Africa, in an effort to identify factors that may have helped some countries to achieve important gains in contraceptive prevalence while other countries have not.

This interview with Shaheen Hussain of Pakistan tells the story of how she became a field-based health educator with a social franchise of private reproductive health care providers and is a testimony of how this program not only touches the lives of the women who receive the reproductive health services but also of the health educators themselves.

The Performance of Routine Information System Management (PRISM) framework defines routine health information system (RHIS) performance as both the production of quality data and documented use of information for health services decision making. This paper describes the conceptual framework on the determinants of RHIS performances and effectiveness of strategies to improve the system. [adapted from abstract]

Increasing demand, enlarged workloads, and current and anticipated physician shortages in many countries have led to the introduction of mid-level professionals, such as physician assistants. This systematic review aimed to appraise the evidence of the contribution of these workers within primary care relevant to the UK or similar systems. [adapted from abstract]

The White Ribbon Alliance in Tanzania have produced this short, 4 minute film to improve the public perception of midwives and mobilize support for advocacy targeting improvements in the working conditions of midwives. [from publisher]

Ram Shrestha’s 5.5 minute video advocates linking the formal health systems of the national government with the informal systems of the community groups in order for everyone to benefit from wider coverage of health services and improved health outcomes. [adapted from publisher]

This 5 minute video tells the story of Claire, a midwife from Harlow, who visited the slums of Delhi and rural clinics in Rajasthan to see what life is like for her Indian colleagues and saw the difference that innovative projects and passionate staff can make for mothers and babies. [adapted from publisher]

This 6 minute video tells the story of six British health workers that went to Liberia to see what life was like for their African colleagues. In a country recovering from civil war, they met doctors, nurses and midwives doing everything they could to save children’s lives. [adapted from publisher]

In this short, 2 minute video, Charmaine Pattinson of the Clinton Health Access Initiative discusses the need for increasing human resources for health in the developing world. [from publisher]

This case study explores the significant role of community-based initiatives and the process of collaborating with communit organziations to address HIV within communities of high-risk populations in India. [adapted from author]