Chapter 1
Health workers: a global profile
Health workers are people whose job it is to protect and improve the health of their communities. Together these health workers, in all their diversity, make up the global health workforce. This chapter gives an overview of what is known about them. It describes the size and distribution of the workforce, and some of its characteristics, including how much it costs. It shows that there is a substantial shortage of health workers to meet health needs, but that shortages are not universal, even across low income countries. The chapter then considers how much it would cost to scale up training to meet this shortfall and pay health workers subsequently.
In this chapter
- Who are the health workers?
- How many health workers are there?
- How much is spent on the health workforce?
- Where are the health workers?
- Are there enough health workers?
- Addressing the shortage – how much will it cost?
- Conclusion
Figures
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Health workers in all sectors
pdf, 605kb -
Distribution of women in health service professions, by WHO region
pdf, 529kb -
Distribution of health workers by level of health expenditure and burden of disease, by WHO region
pdf, 511kb -
Rural–urban distribution of health service providers
pdf, 468kb -
Population density of health care professionals required to ensure skilled attendance at births
pdf, 532kb
Tables
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Occupational classifications for the health industry, South African census, 2001
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Global health workforce, by density
pdf, 692kb -
Proportion of government health expenditure paid to health workers
pdf, 560kb -
Estimated critical shortages of doctors, nurses and midwives, by WHO region
pdf, 613kb
Maps
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Density of health service providers (per 1000 population)
pdf, 588kb -
Countries with a critical shortage of health service providers (doctors, nurses and midwives)
pdf, 567kb
Images
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image 1
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image 2
jpg, 187kb
Dr John Awoonor-Williams is the only doctor at Nkwanta District Hospital, Ghana, serving a population of 187 000 in a remote, vast area in the northern part of the Volta Region.
