Monitoring the health workforce: measurement issues and selected tools
Fact sheet
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This fact sheet, part of a series on health workforce statistics, provides an overview of tools used to collect health workforce statistics.
Experience shows that the development of a comprehensive evidence base generally requires combining different types of information, frequently scattered across different sources. The starting point for any investigative exercise of the HRH situation in a given country should be a review of existing standard statistical sources, including those from outside the health sector: population statistics generated by census bureaus and statistical offices; work permits from labour departments; income files from tax departments; and others seldom used by health system planners and managers.
Where the existing data remain inadequate, the decision must be made whether to complement these sources with new data collection activities, such as a specialized HRH assessment. Various tools have been developed to systematise the data collection process.