Health Labour Market Analysis Guidebook

This handbook is an essential resource which brings into focus key advances, challenges and lessons learned in strengthening human resources for health (HRH) data and evidence as a strategic objective of implementing the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030, the recommendations of the United Nations Secretary-General High-level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, and in the achievement of the WHO Thirteenth General Programme of Work (2019–2023 (GPW 13) targets, for a measurable impact on population health and development. Divided into three parts, the handbook presents the complementarity between WHO Health Labour Market Analysis Guidebook and WHO handbook on national health workforce accounts (NHWA) system strengthening approach to improving the availability, quality, analysis, dissemination and use of health workforce data and evidence to inform decision-making and planning in countries. It also features the committed country efforts, catalysed by networks and partner investments, in strengthening HRH information systems and their growing success in implementing NHWA and other WHO normative tools. Contributed by the six technical working groups of the Global Health Workforce Network (GHWN) Data and Evidence hub, the handbook is aimed at HRH policy-makers and planners, to provide contemporary insight on data sources and information needs to address policy questions around health workforce development, and as part of the broader intersectoral agenda to strengthening health systems resilience.

Achieving universal health care requires understanding health labor markets dynamics to overcome constaints in human resources for health. This book helps to understand how key elements in health labor markets interact and how these interactions can help or hinder significant progress in health care coverage.

This book, produced jointly by the World Bank, the University of California, Berkeley, and the WHO, aims to provide decision-makers at sub-national, national, regional and global levels with additional insights into how to address their workforce challenges rather than describe them. In order to optimize and align HRH investments and develop targeted policy responses, a thorough understanding of unique, country-specific labor market dynamics and determinants of these dynamics is critical. Policies need to take into account the fact that workers are economic actors, responsive to different levels of compensation and opportunities to generate revenue found in different sub-labor markets. Policies need to take into account the behavioral characteristics of the individuals who provide health care, but also the individuals who consume health care services and the institutions that employ health personnel. In other words, it is necessary to understand the determinants of both the supply (numbers of health workers willing to work in the health sector) and the demand for health workers (resources available to hire health workers), how these interact, and how this interaction varies in different contexts. This interaction will determine the availability of health personnel, their distribution as well as their performance levels, thus ensuring stronger health systems capable to deliver universal health coverage. The book is structured to be of use to researchers, planners, and economists who are tasked with analyzing key areas of health labor markets, including overall labor market assessments as well as and more narrow and targeted analyses of demand and supply (including production and migration), performance, and remuneration of health workers. The chapters, written by a number of internationally renowned experts on Human Resources for Health, discuss data sources and empirical tools that can be used to assess health labor markets across high-, middle- or low-income countries, but draws primarily from examples and case-studies in LMICs.

This insightful Research Handbook delivers a comprehensive analysis of the significant contemporary trends and issues affecting human resource management (HRM) for health care, and their subsequent impact on individuals, organisations and national health services. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

This publication is part of the Banks multiyear program to enhance its knowledge of HRH policies. The programs ultimate objective is to strengthen knowledge and capacity to collect evidence, analyze, and evaluate the effectiveness of HRH interventions in the context of a countrys health system strengthening strategy. It specifically addresses the theoretical and empirical evidence on health labor markets in low- and middle-income countries. Health labor market analysis has much to contribute to resolving globally widespread HRH problems, and their continuing neglect provides some explanation for their persistence. Policy makers in countries promulgating or refining strategies for achieving universal health coverage will find it important to understand how key elements in their health labor market are likely to interact and how these interactions could helpor hinderprogress toward universal health coverage. These interactions are complex and multidimensional, and this publication highlights some areas where forces in the health labor market matter most.The purpose of this publication is to provide an overview of the key issues when attempting to apply economics to the analysis of health workers labor markets. Though much has been written and planned about health human resources, a major weakness with most of this analysis is that it does not use an economic perspective. The use of an explicit economic framework applied by trained economists moves the focus away from simplistic but costly policy responses such as training more doctors and nurses, toward understanding more carefully the role of incentives, productivity, and the distribution of health workers. The health workforce is but one part of the health system and a focus of analysis on only the health workforce is insufficient to be able to determine the optimal number of health workers. Market forces cannot be relied upon to solve health worker shortages or mal-distribution, due to well recognized market failures in health care. This also has implications for how labor economics and labor market analysis can be applied and used successfully in the health care sector.