Documents & Reports

This policy brief addresses the role of partnerships between health workers and the community, for the purposes of improving maternal, newborn and child health in resource-constrained settings, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region. [from author]

This policy brief summarises the critical workforce issues
highlighted from a review of the literature of maternal,
newborn and child health services at community
level, with a particular focus on the Asia Pacific region. [from author]

This study examines the issues, in the Ugandan context, with strategies to shift facility and community-based tasks to “expert patients,” clients who are recruited and trained to provide suport services for other clients in facilities and in communities. [adapted from summary]

Using qualitative data from Rwanda, this study focuses on four institutional factors that affect health worker performance and career choice: incentives, monitoring arrangements, professional norms and health workers’ intrinsic motivation. It also provides illustrations of three institutional innovations that work, at least in the context of Rwanda: performance pay, the establishment of community health workers and increased attention to the training of health workers. [adapted from introduction]

This paper estimates the effectiveness of a range of policy interventions aimed at improving the supply of health workers to rural areas in Ethiopia. Using data from a survey of 861 health workers, it employs stated preference techniques to predict labor market responses of doctors and nurses to changes in rural wages, working conditions, housing bene…ts, and training opportunities. [from abstract]

To assist in generating further discussion and actions to improve the interoperability of eHealth solutions, the World Bank commissioned this concept paper outlining relevant issues and options on the harmonization and alignment of the eHealth architecture for human resources for health management and development. [adapted from author]

This paper compiles recent evidence on the Zambian health labor market and provides baseline information on HRH to support the government address its HRH challenges. In addition, the paper analyzes the available evidence on the national health labor market to better understand the number, distribution, and performance of HRH in Zambia and explains HRH outcomes by mapping, assessing, and analyzing pre-service education and labor market dynamics and well as the core factors influencing these dynamics. [from author]

This document reviews the current human resources for health situation in Ethiopia, summarizes the evidence on population use of select health services, and offers relevant policy options to assist the government finalize its new human resources strategy and address remaining health challenges. [from summary]

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.

This brief presents an overview of the issue of FBOs and human resources for health along with suggested actions, key considerations, and resources. [from publisher]

These case studies provide country-level information on the prevalence of gender based violence; the policy framework; health sector response; health worker capacity building; and successes, challenges and lessons learned dealing with gender based violence in the health sector. Countries included are: Bangladesh, Malaysia, Maldives, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste. [adapted from author]

This account from one of the highly-qualified nurses and midwives who returned to Somaliland after the civil war relates what has been done to train a new generation of nurses and midwives, to improve standards of patient care, to develop relevant training programs and to foster regulation of the health sector. [from author]

This report summarizes a quality assurance project and explains how citizens were engaged at the facility level in improving health service quality, while also contributing to increased responsiveness and accountability on the part of health providers. [adapted from author]

This study carries out a microeconomic labor analysis of health worker career choice and of job behavior. It shows how common problems related to distribution or performance of HRH are driven by the behavior of health workers themselves and are determined largely by select monetary and nonmonetary compensation. [from abstract]

Efforts to expand access to nursing care and remedy the global nursing shortages are hampered when nurses are unemployed or underemployed. This monograph seeks to fill the gap in understanding on this issue, including nurses who are currently inactive but who might return to nursing work given favourable circumstances. [adapted from introduction]
The document also includes case studies from Kenya, Uganda, Philippines and Ireland.

Verah Nkosi, a nursing-midwifery student at the Kamuzu College of Nursing in Malawi, shares her perspective and illustrates some common challenges for increasing the quantity and quality of graduates from health professional schools. [from author]

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

This paper considers current HRH issues within pacific island countries from the perspectives of people who manage HRH within their country health ministry. The aim of this paper is to document and highlight their key areas of common concern. [from introduction]

This project brief describes the HRH challenges in Kenya, and the work being done to strengthen HRH policies and practices, build the knowledge and skills of health workers, and improve workforce performance systems. [adapted from author]

The patterns of abuse recorded in this report and the evidence garnered from other sources provide a compelling picture of how the Syrian authorities are blocking access to health care for people wounded during conflict and preventing healthcare professionals from treating such patients freely and without fear. [from author]

This call to action advocates for the recognition of the economic and social value of volunteers in public health disaster situations and the development of policies to protect them.

This document modelled the incidence and fraction of hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections that were attributable to a workplace percutaneous injury with a needle or sharp contaminated with bloodborne pathogens. [from summary]

This brief shows that lay health workers can successfully engage significant numbers of consumers in increasing knowledge and reducing barriers to health care quality. It also discusses the fundamental issues of monitoring performance, obtaining recognition and developing an effective training model. [adapted from author]

This case study explores the process between donors and the government of moving pay for performance (P4P) from concept to design to implementation. It describes key areas of disagreement, and highlights the political tensions inherent in translating high-level interest in P4P into on-the-ground action. [from author]

This report summarizes the key points and main conclusions of the Global Meeting of HRH Observatories including the potential benefits of HRH observatories: contribute to improving the information and evidence on HRH; inform, shape, validate and evaluate health workforce policies; make the links between health workforce, financing and outcomes. [adapated from summary]

Violence, both actual and threatened, against the wounded and the sick, and against health-care facilities and personnel, is a crucial yet overlooked humanitarian issue. This brochure provides a brief overview of the stark reality of violence against health care. [adapted from publisher]

Thousands of wounded and sick people can be denied effective health care when hospitals are damaged by explosive weapons or forcibly entered by fighters, when ambulances are hijacked and when health-care personnel are threatened, kidnapped, injured or killed. This study is based on an analysis of reports collected over a two and- a-half year period describing 655 violent incidents affecting health care in 16 countries. [from summary]

The authors present data from a nationally representative all-India survey which enumerators physically verify the attendance of providers during unannounced visits, and found that nearly 40% of doctors and medical service providers are absent from work on a typical day. [from abstract]

This report discusses issues related to violence against health workers, patients and hospitals during armed conflict and the impact it has on health workers and the subsequent lack of available health care for those in need.

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.