Developing a Balanced Health Workforce

There is a growing recognition that the increased demand for health services brought about by population growth, aging, and economic development is putting greater emphasis on how countries train, recruit, deploy, retain, and manage their health workforce. This has resulted in an unprecedented and much-needed focus on health workforce policy, planning, production, deployment, and ongoing professional development, while taking labour market factors into account. Low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs) must develop effective strategies to optimize health workforce supply while also supporting recruitment, deployment, retention, and performance in order to address their health workforce challenges. The challenge ahead is to decide on what to do and, more importantly, how to do it. This Chapter focuses on the use of labour market dynamics concepts and frameworks in developing policies and strategies to address the current workforce challenges in L&MICs.

Keywords

Health workforce Health workforce development Human resources for health planning Human resources for health management Health labour market Health workforce regulation Health workforce governance Health workforce information L&MIC

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: Making Health Systems Work in Low and Middle Income Countries
Textbook for Public Health Practitioners
, pp. 306 - 319
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009211086.021 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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Chapter 20 - Developing a Balanced Health Workforce

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