Density of nurses and midwives

What does the indicator tell us?

Nurse and midwife density indicates whether nurses and midwifery personnel are available to address the health care needs of a given population. Health worker density is included as an indicator for SDG 3: "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages". Health worker density and distribution is included in the WHO Global reference list of 100 core health indicators.

How is it defined?

This indicator is the number of nursing and midwifery personnel, and their density per 1000 population. These personnel include professional nurses and midwives, auxiliary nurses and midwives, enrolled nurses and midwives, and other personnel such as dental nurses and primary care nurses. Traditional birth attendants are not counted in this number, but are classed as community or traditional health workers.

What are the consequences and implications?

There is no gold standard for what a sufficient health workforce would be to address the health care needs of a given population. It has been estimated, however, that countries with fewer than 25 health care professionals (counting only physicians, nurses and midwives) per 10 000 population fail to achieve adequate coverage rates for important primary health care interventions.

Source of data

WHO. Global Health Observatory (GHO) data repository. Health workforce. Aggregated data. Density per 1000. Data by country (http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.A1444?lang=en&showonly=HWF).

Further reading

The World Health Report 2006: working together for health. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2006 (http://www.who.int/whr/2006/en/).

The World Health Report 2006 papers: follow-up to the World Health Report 2006. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2006 (http://www.who.int/hrh/documents/whr06_background_papers).

WHO. Global reference list of 100 core health indicators (plus health-related SDGs). Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018 (https://www.who.int/healthinfo/indicators/2018/en/).

Internet resources

United Nations. Global Sustainable Development Goals indicators database (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/database/).