The SDG agenda gives recognition to UHC as key to achieving all other health targets. SDG 3c sets a target to "substantially increase health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce in developing countries, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States." WHO and its partners developed the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030 (GSHRH) to accelerate progress towards UHC and the SDGs by ensuring equitable access to health workers within strengthened health systems. Resolution (WHA69.19) urges Member States to consolidate a core set of HRH data with annual reporting to the Global Health Observatory, as well as progressive implementation of National Health Workforce Accounts to support national policy and planning and the GSHRH's monitoring and accountability framework. As part of its normative and standard-setting role, WHO published the National Health Workforce Accounts (NHWA) Handbook (first edition, 2017; second edition, 2023) providing statistical definitions and standards for health workforce indicators, with occupational classifications aligned to the ILO ISCO-08 framework

SDG Target 3.c: Substantially increase health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce in developing countries, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States

Medical doctors
Include generalists, specialist medical practitioners and medical doctors not further defined, in the given national and/or subnational area. The ISCO-08 codes included here are 221, 2211, 2212.

Nursing and midwifery personnel
Include nursing personnel and midwifery personnel in the given national and/or subnational area. The ISCO-08 codes included here are 2221, 2222, 3221, 3222.

Dentists
Include dentists in the given national and/or subnational area. The ISCO-08 codes included here are 2261.

Pharmacists
Includes pharmacists in the given national and/or subnational area. The ISCO-08 code that relates to this occupation is 2262.

The WHO framework for classifying health workers draws on the latest revisions of International Standard Classification of Occupations (revision 2008).

by occupation

In response to World Health Assembly resolution, WHA69.19, an online National Health Workforce Accounts (NHWA) data platform was developed to facilitate national, regional and global monitoring and reporting of health workforce data through a centralised database. Hosted in WHO, the NHWA data platform was built to facilitate data reporting on the indicators listed in the NHWA Handbook and data sharing across all the three levels of WHO. Since its launch in November 2017, Member States are called to use the NHWA data platform to monitor and report their health workforce data. This reporting is performed by nationally nominated NHWA focal points, who are in most cases senior authoritative officials in the Ministry of Health – usually directors of the HWF department or unit – or at specialized government agencies which are designated to collect health-related information and statistics. At the national level, NHWA focal points convene multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral (e.g. education, finance, labour, private sector) working groups which oversee the collection, collation and analysis of HWF data, by following best practices for HRHIS such as diversification of data sources, triangulation of data, and data quality assessments. Focal points then share the HWF data through the NHWA data platform on behalf of their country following the NHWA norms and standards annually. Data can be shared up to the penultimate year. In case the country has been able to gather more accurate data for previous years, then the focal point also provides retrospective updates. Depending on the nature of the original data source, the data may include practising (active) only or all registered in the health occupation. Countries are encouraged to adopt a progressive NHWA implementation approach, building on multistakeholder engagement at national and sub-national levels.

Complementing the national reporting through the NHWA data platform, the WHO Secretariat may also use data from other official channels such as the OECD-Eurostat-WHO EURO Joint Questionnaire on Non-Monetary Healthcare Statistics or key administrative national and regional sources. NHWA focal points are apprised of any such cases for their review and feedback. Through this process, with engagement of representatives from Member States throughout, data cleared and published by WHO are considered as official statistics and adhere to the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics².

The denominator data for workforce density (i.e. national population estimates) are obtained from the latest revision of the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects database.

Annual

Ongoing process

kunjument@who.int

Teena Kunjumen

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While public sector data tend to be the most comprehensive, ongoing efforts are needed to strengthen coverage of the private, military, NGO, and faith-based health sectors, as well as to keep regulatory and professional council records current As data are not always published annually for every country, the latest available data have been used. Given differences in data sources, considerable variability remains across countries in the coverage, periodicity, quality and completeness of the underlying data.
Densities are calculated using the latest national population estimates from the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects database and may vary from densities produced by the country.