Evaluations & Reviews

This document provides guidance on the defining features of health policy and systems research (HPSR), particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and the critical steps in conducting research in this field. It showcases the diverse range of research strategies and methods encompassed by HPSR, and it provides examples of good quality and innovative HPSR papers. [adapted from author]

This study sought to understand what the field of mHealth had to offer, to explore how mHealth is implemented in practice and to use these two sources of information to reflect on the lessons and implications for implementing mHealth at scale for monitoring and evaluation of community based services and community health workers. [adapted from summary]

Research reveals a close link between inappropriate nurse staffing levels and higher rates of unwanted outcomes for patients. This report highlights evidence-informed recommendations for improvements in patient outcomes through advancements in nurse staffing. [from summary]

The objectives of this review were systematically assess national practices in HRIS implementation, identify main areas of weakness in HRIS implementation with attention to countries facing acute health workforce shortages, offer recommendations to ministries of health and global health policy makers on how to improve the science and application of human resources information and monitoring systems. [from author]

The aim of this systematic review was to explore the use of feedback in improving the effectiveness of workplace based assessments in postgraduate medical training. [adapted from abstract]

This paper provides a detailed analysis of the complete responses from an online survey to capture developing country experience with pay for performance - a strategy that is increasingly being introduced with the goal of improving maternal and child health outcomes. [adapted from author]

This literature review attempted to evaluate the evidence base on the use of task-shifting between community health workers and mid-level providers to increase access to family planning and reproductive health. [adapted from author]

This systematic review investigates what helps and hinders routine outcome measurement of allied health professionals practice. [from abstract]

This report details two assessment in Niger - a rapid assessment of human resources systems including the current recruitment, deployment, reward, supervision, evaluation, training and career advancement systems from the central to the district levels; and a site-level assessments that looked at the impact of those systems on health workers and at their overall engagement. [adapted from summary]

This report summarizes the findings of a qualitative study on health workers’ performance and career in Rwanda to identify bottlenecks, strengths and shortcomings for human resources in the health sector, as perceived by both health workers and users of health services. [adapted from summary]

This paper summarises the findings from the second wave of a cohort study with health workers in Ethiopia including data on: where they end up and how health workers are distributed; career preferences and how they have changed; what is important in the choice between rural and urban areas; and what drives the likelihood to migrate abroad. [from summary]

The objectives of this study were to estimate the economic value of community health workers (CHW), current CHW’s workload and responsibilities, and to obtain a preliminary understanding of CHWs’ opinions of the role they serve in their communities (job satisfaction) and how these services are viewed by members of their communities. [adapted from summary]

This paper reports the findings of the Zambian study pertaining to human resources for health, including issues with high staff vacancies, high rates of absenteeism and tardiness, impact on patients and the coping mechanisms health workers are employing to augment their incomes. [adapted from summary]

This report contains results from descriptive analysis of a cohort study with final year health students in Ethiopia to build a base line for a cohort survey with future health workers and to provide insights on the supply side aspect of human resources in the health sector. [adapted from summary]

The government of Rwanda has identified human resources for health as one of its policy priorities. This study aims to contribute to building a better understanding of health worker choice and behaviour, and to improve evidence based polcies. [from summary]

The aim of this study was to identify workforce ratios in nine allied health professions and to identify whether these measures are useful for planning allied health workforce requirements. [from abstract]

The objective of this review was to ascertain if priority access to HIV and/or TB services should be provided to health care workers as well as whether workplaces should provide programs reducing stigma and/or discrimination for all health care workers. [from abstract]

This review examines the use of various categories of community health workers as first line health workers in dealing, for example, with maternal and child health, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other issues throughout Africa. [from author]

A community-based project to increase community awareness about primary prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) was implemented in an urban township of Cape Town. The aims of project were to utilise community health workers as change agents in their community and to develop a NCD model for an urban township community. [adapted from author]

To help support the introduction of adult maled circumcision (MC) for HIV prevention in Kenya, this study was conducted to gather information about the current MC policy and program environment regarding HRH planning to support adult MC scale-up in four districts in Kenya. [from author]

This paper complements several recently published discussions of options for influencing the private sector in low and middle-income countries. Its aim is to contribute to the development of common understandings of the realities of public and private provision and of policies for improving performance. It argues that we need to situate strategies towards private providers in the context of local relationships between the state, market and civil society. [from introduction]

This paper describes the evaluation of a tailored HIV curriculum for village AIDS committees (VACs) within a rural area to determine if the curriculum increased levels of HIV knowledge among the VAC members through conducting baseline and post-training surveys. [adapted from author]

This document summarises findings of a global review whose aim was to identify patterns of success and impact, and outline likely trends in the nature and provision of distance learning for health in low and middle income countries, hence informing future policy, research and investment in distance learning for health workers. [from introduction]

This profile summarises the available information on the cadres working at community level in Cambodia; their diversity, distribution, supervisory structures, education and training, as well as the policy and regulations that govern their practice. [from summary]

Community case management of malaria is an established route for distribution of anti-malarial drugs in rural areas, but this study examined the feasibility and acceptability of the approach through Community Medicine Distributors (CMDs) in urban areas using before and after implementation studies in five African cities in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Malawi. [adapted from introduction]

This is a systematic review of what is known concerning the knowledge, skills and attitudes of medical students regarding leadership and management. It reports the results pertaining to the attitudes of students to provide evidence to inform curriculum development in the developing field of medical education. [adapted from author]

Given the very limited professional health care human resources in these settings, it is important to examine the evidence for the effectiveness of community health worker (CHW) programs as a delivery strategy for health interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. This review focuses on the impact CHWs have when delivering curative interventions. [adapted from author]

This publication assesses the results from a wide-ranging series of systematic reviews of the evidence on human resource management (HRM) and performance. It assesses evidence on use of HRM in the UK and fidelity of practice implemented and considers evidence for the impact of HRM practices on intermediate outcomes, which can impact on final outcomes, such as organisational performance or patient care. [adapted from abstract]

This systematic review of the literature on Communities of Practice (CoPs) was conducted to examine how and why CoPs have been established and whether they have been shown to improve healthcare practice. [from abstract]

This review describes the current situation of health leadership and management capacity at the sub-divisional level in Fiji. [from summary]