Human resource challenges in health systems: evidence from 10 African countries.

ABSTRACT: Sub-Saharan Africa has fewer medical workers per capita than any region of the world, and that shortage has been highlighted consistently as a critical constraint to improving health outcomes in the region. This paper draws on newly available, systematic, comparable data from 10 countries in the region to explore the dimensions of this shortage. We find wide variation in human resources performance metrics, both within and across countries. Many facilities are barely staffed, and effective staffing levels fall further when adjusted for health worker absences. However, caseloads-while also varying widely within and across countries-are also low in many settings, suggesting that even within countries, deployment rather than shortages, together with barriers to demand, may be the principal ch

SUBMITTER: Sheffel A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11308604 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature