PHA-Exch> Global Atlas of the Health Workforce

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) <ruglucia at paho.org>
crossposted from: EQUIDAD at listserv.paho.org


   *Global Atlas of the Health Workforce *

*
The WHO Department of Human Resources for Health 2008***


Website: http://www.who.int/globalatlas/



There is a growing need for high quality information on human resources in
health systems to inform decision making for policies and programmes at the
national and international levels. The WHO Department of Human Resources for
Health has been collecting and compiling cross-nationally comparable data on
health workers in all WHO Member States.



Estimates of the stock (absolute numbers) and density (per 1000 population)
of the health workforce are available here for 193 Member States.
National-level data refer to the active health workforce, that is, all
persons currently participating in the health labour market. Counting health
workers poses challenges, including how to define them. The World Health
Report 2006 defines health workers as "all people engaged in actions whose
primary intent is to enhance health." Various permutations and combinations
of what constitutes the health workforce potentially exist depending of each
country's situation and the means of measurement. The information presented
here reflects a framework for harmonizing the boundaries and constituency of
the health workforce across contexts.

Two sets of data are contained in the Global Atlas: a main (aggregated) set
and a disaggregated set. The aggregated dataset includes estimates of the
stock and density of health workers for up to 9 occupational categories.
This includes:

(i) physicians;
(ii) nursing and midwifery personnel;
(iii) dentistry personnel;
(iv) pharmaceutical personnel;
(v) laboratory health workers;
vi) environmental and public health workers;
(vii) community and traditional health workers;
(viii) other health service providers; and
(ix) health management and support workers,
       that is, those who do not provide services directly but are critical
to the performance of health systems.



In the disaggregated dataset, estimates of the stock of health workers are
available for some countries for up to 18 occupational categories,
reflecting greater distinction of some categories of workers according to
assumed differences in skill level and skill specialization. More
information on the framework for categorizing health workers can be found in
the definition notes <http://www.who.int/globalatlas/docs/HRH/HTML/Dftn.htm>.
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