Forecasting the global shortage of physicians: an economic- and needs-based approach
Richard M Scheffler, Jenny X Liu, Yohannes Kinfu, Mario R Dal Poz
Volume 86, Number 7, July 2008, 516-523
Table 1. Projected supply of, need for and demand for physicians, by WHO region, 2015
| WHO region | Supplya |
Needb |
Demandc |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1000s)d | (1000s)d | Surplus (+) orshortage (−)d,e | (1000s) | Surplus (+) orshortage (−)d,f | |||
| African | 255 | 422 | −167 | 144 | 111 | ||
| (208–329) | (377–469) | (−213 – −122) | (131–159) | (96–124) | |||
| Americas | 2773 | 538 | 2235 | 1885 | 888 | ||
| (2 509–3 120) | (481–599) | (2 174–2 293) | (1 620–2 196) | (578–1 153) | |||
| Eastern Mediterranean | 1077 | 308 | 769 | 520 | 557 | ||
| (914–1 297) | (275–343) | (734–802) | (442–612) | (465–635) | |||
| European | 3222 | 480 | 2742 | 2913 | 309 | ||
| (3 015–3 449) | (429–534) | (2 687–2 793) | (2 615–3 259) | (−38–607) | |||
| South-East Asia | 1067 | 987 | 80 | 910 | 157 | ||
| (931–1 225) | (882–1 097) | (−30–186) | (718–1 155) | (−87–350) | |||
| Western Pacific | 4256 | 1016 | 3240 | 4432 | −176 | ||
| (3 853–4 883) | (907–1 130) | (3 126–3 348) | (3 107–6 347) | (−2 092–1 148) | |||
| World | 12 650 | 3 752 | 8 898 | 10 804 | 1 846 | ||
| (11 430–14 303) | (3 351–4 171) | (8 478–9 299) | (8 633–13 728) | (−1 078–4 017) | |||
a Supply is projected based on the historical growth of physicians per capita in each country.b Need is assessed based on reaching the goal of 80% of live births attended by a skilled health-care worker.c Demand is projected based on economic growth (both historical and projected) of each country.d Values in parentheses are 95% confidence intervals.e Surplus (shortage) is calculated as mean projected supply minus estimated need. High and low estimates reflect the 95% confidence interval of the needs-based estimated 80% coverage attainment level.f Surplus (shortage) is calculated as mean projected supply minus estimated demand. High and low estimates reflect the 95% confidence interval of the demand-based estimated coefficients.