Browse by Geographic Focus

This study assessed whether the strategy of “a midwife in every village” in Indonesia achieved its aim of increasing professional delivery care for the poorest women. [from abstract]

Programs and services need to be sensitively designed to facilitate women’s access to physical and social needs. This paper narrates the experience of working with health providers from public and private sectors, community, local government representatives and community-based organizations. Through transformative learning, this endeavour focused on initiating a process of sensitization on gender related health issues for women. [from abstract]

This retrospective study assessed the effects of pre- and post-training programme for healthcare professionals about breastfeeding. [from abstract]

We examined how individual and institutional factors in health care settings affected discrimination toward persons with HIV/AIDS. A representative sample of 1101 Chinese service providers was recruited in 2005, including doctors, nurses, and laboratory technicians. [from abstract]

In parts of rural Africa, where conflict and neglect have destroyed any remnants of a functioning health system, there is one long-running public-health programme that is not only surviving but thriving—by capitalising on communities’ desires to help themselves. [author’s description]

This report summarises the results of a study of health worker satisfaction, working conditions and intent to continue working in the health sector in Uganda. The findings point to the importance of a number of factors that contribute to satisfaction and intent to stay, including differences by cadre, gender, age, sector (public or non-profit) and location. The results suggest several policy strategies to strengthen human resources for health in Uganda. [from abstract]

This report reviews the literature, published and unpublished, available on HRH in Mozambique. It also carries out some secondary data analysis and presents data from interviews and focus group discussions with key informers and stakeholders. The study of the human resources situation in Mozambique followed a frame of reference that addressed key issues related to the context, professional policies, labour market, management of human resources, and performance and coping. [from executive summary]

Nurses provide the bulk of primary care services in South Africa. Post-apartheid health legislation envisions the provision of comprehensive primary services at all public clinics, which implies the need for a cadre of primary care nurses able to render such services. The objective of this study was to identify core competencies of clinic nurses and develop an evaluation tool for primary care nursing in South Africa. [from abstract]

The overall objective of community-based medical education (CBME) is to produce highly qualified doctors in sufficient numbers to meet the health needs of the nation at community and hospital levels. In the current program, medical students undertake an eight-week residential posting in their final year. The objective of this study was to assess the communities’ awareness, perception and participation in the CBME program. [adapted from introduction]

A substantial number of patients with psychiatric disorders consult primary care physicians for comprehensive health care; however, the diagnosis and effective treatment of psychiatric disorders are deficient in primary health care. The aim of this intervention study is to assess the pre- and post-psychiatric training knowledge of primary care physicians. [from abstract]

The focus of McKinsey’s research effort is on the HRH constraint, faced by many developing countries, in absorbing development aid and scaling up urgently needed health programs. HRH in this context is defined as the health workers at the front line of healthcare service delivery. The field work necessary to diagnose the problem and identify possible solutions has been initiated in Tanzania. We believe these findings, accounting for certain differences, will be broadly applicable to several developing countries. [from author]

This study proposes potential options for creating a pan-Canadian HHR planning mechanism or mechanisms to better serve the process of coordinated HHR planning across jurisdictions and among multiple professions. The second goal is to assess the current level of support among both government actors at the federal, provincial and territorial levels and stakeholder organizations for creating a pan-Canadian HHR planning. The study examines the current HHR planning infrastructure in the country, recent international developments in HHR planning and the attitudes of key informants in governmental and non-governmental communities.

Although misconceptions about family planning and cultural factors such as son preference presented some obstacles to progress, [two MSH] projects found that religion in Afghanistan is not a barrier to expanding family planning services. It was critical to engage clinicians and communities in culturally sensitive ways. Emphasizing the use of birth spacing to protect the health of mothers and children was especially effective. Activities to empower women

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, a significant portion of the population lives in rural areas, leaving many women with limited access to clinic-based family planning services. Thus CBD of contraceptives remains an important service delivery mechanism in this region. The primary aim of this study was to assess the safety, quality, and feasibility of Depo-Provera provision by community reproductive health workers.

Under the ENABLE Safe Motherhood Core Initiative, CEDPA/India collaborated with the Community Aid and Sponsorship Program on the Safe Motherhood Initiative to reduce maternal death by showing women, their families and their communities how to prepare for a safe delivery, to identify pregnancy-related complications at their onset, and to seek medical help immediately. [publisher’s description]

In Tanzania, the PHRplus project developed and tested a set of training materials and tools designed to strengthen the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system. All of the tools were implemented in twelve project districts in eight regions of the country. The tools can be adapted for use in other countries and include job aids for district training of trainers, facility training of trainers, district and facility level IDSR training materials and other supporting training tools. [adapted from publisher]

This paper discusses a collaborative effort between two universities in Sri Lanka and Canada to create a distance education program to train nurses in Sri Lanka.

The MCH clinic workers in Somalia receive formal and in-service training to perform their professional duties. Their competence in the field was never examined. This study assessed their competencies in detecting malnourished children 5 years and below in Beledweyne. [from abstract]

Family Medicine training and assessment is becoming more formalized and developed in South Africa. Assessment of competency in relation to clinical skills can involve observation in the clinical setting, but is more usually assessed in an examination. Summative assessment of family physician’s clinical skills now usually includes an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Standardisation of the OSCE is required to define the pass mark above which a candidate performs at the level expected of a family physician. [from abstract]

This paper discusses global, regional and national perspectives of traditional medicine development and efforts that have been directed towards bridging the gap between traditional health practitioners and scientists/biomedical heath practitioners in contemporary health research in Tanzania. [from abstract]

This HRH policy document addresses the production and utilization of Human Resources within the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone. It also responds to the contemporary challenges and developments including the exodus of human resources and advancement in technology. This policy intends to regulate and direct planning, production, management, utilization and monitoring of HR within the health sector. [from foreword]

The shortfall of health personnel continues to represent one of the major constraints to the development of health services and access to basic health care in Sierra Leone. The plan contains an analysis of the current situation with a focus on the distribution of Health Personnel, the current stock, wastage, outputs from training schools, dropout rates and human resources policies currently obtained in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. It also projects future requirements based on the recommended establishment. [from preface]

This report summarizes the findings and conclusions of [a baseline study and a three-day stakeholder workshop on productivity]. Specifically, we present the baseline study findings, identify areas where current productivity falls short of desired levels, consider the root causes of identified productivity gaps and offer practical recommendations for feasible management interventions to improve productivity. We conclude with a short-term action plan for moving forward with implementation activities. [from introduction]

This report provides an overview of the public health situation across the 46 Member States of the African Region of the World Health Organization. The report charts progress made to date in fighting disease and promoting health in the African Region. It reviews the success stories and looks at areas where more efforts are needed to improve people’s health. [author’s description] Chapter 6 includes a discussion of the human resources for health crisis and approaches to filling the gap as well as health information systems.

The experience of the Training in Health and Environmental Health in the Caribbean Community project has demonstrated that distance education techniques is an effective medium through which participants in more than eleven countries can be brought together to be educated on topics that are significant to both the region and to individual countries. This paper examines the means through which individuals are educated and meaningful communication among them facilitated.

The peculiarities of the scattered small states of the Caribbean region call for a model of training practitioners that is effective, relevant and sustainable. Distance education (DE) as an approach offers advantages that meet some of the challenges inherent in training family physicians for the region. This paper examines some of these challenges and shows where DE is being used to structure delivery of the programme. In particular, the need for context-specific training, managing time strictures and the cost issues of training are discussed. [from abstract]

The Ministry of Health Manpower Development Centre in Uganda has been carrying out training of health workers as part of their continuing education using both distance education and conventional methods since 1989. It was important, therefore, to develop a comprehensive documentation of the distance learning programmes in order to show the effectiveness and potential of distance education in upgrading medical personnel as compared to other approaches. [from author]

Health workers attending overseas universities may be less likely to return home. One response is to improve course provision and professional updating opportunities in-country. Leeds Metropolitan University, with funding from the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission under their distance learning initiative, runs a tailor-made MSc Public Health (Environmental Health and Health Promotion) in Zambia, for nurse tutors, clinical officers and environmental health workers. Using locally relevant curricula, with community-based, student centred, problem-solving approaches, retention may be improved. This paper will discuss how the course is delivered in Zambia, how the partnership developed such as to enable effective delivery of the course, and how sustainable learning can be achieved in a developing country in partnership with a UK University. [from abstract]

This study set out to characterise the nature and extent of discriminatory practices and attitudes in the health sector, and indicate possible contributing factors and intervention strategies. [from author]

Hospital managers who used a checklist to assess their facilities’ policies and practices took action to improve staff safety and reduce AIDS-related stigma. Findings suggest that the actions taken, including education, training, policy formulation, and involvement of AIDS NGOs, contributed to improved knowledge, attitudes, and practices among health workers. UNAIDS has recognized the intervention as a best practice, and NACO has endorsed the intervention’s tools and approaches. [author’s description]