Health workforce requirements for universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals

Overview

Health systems can only function with health workers; improving health service coverage and health outcomes depends on a fit-forpurpose and fit-to-practise health workforce (1). The need for health workers globally is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades as a result of a confluence of factors, including population growth, ageing, changing epidemiology and new technologies. On the horizon are new challenges, including increased prevalence of noncommunicable diseases that require a lifetime of care and management; meeting the health needs of adolescents in “youth bulge” countries; and building resilient public health systems everywhere that can respond quickly and flexibly to epidemics such as Ebola or Middle East respiratory syndrome, as well as contributing to the progressive realization of universal health coverage (2). Efforts to scale up essential interventions to achieve the health-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and universal health coverage are likely to be thwarted by insufficient availability of health workers in low- and middle-income countries.