So many, yet few: Human resources for health in India
TLDR
Among the important human resources challenges that India faces is increasing the presence of qualified health workers in underserved areas and a more efficient skill mix by ensuring the availability of reliable and comprehensive workforce information through live workforce registers.Abstract:
Background: In many developing countries, such as India, information on human resources in the health sector is incomplete and unreliable. This prevents effective workforce planning and management. This paper aims to address this deficit by producing a more complete picture of India’s health workforce. Methods: Both the Census of India and nationally representative household surveys collect data on self-reported occupations. A representative sample drawn from the 2001 census was used to estimate key workforce indicators. Nationally representative household survey data and official estimates were used to compare and supplement census results. Results: India faces a substantial overall deficit of health workers; the density of doctors, nurses and midwifes is a quarter of the 2.3/1000 population World Health Organization benchmark. Importantly, a substantial portion of the doctors (37%), particularly in rural areas (63%) appears to be unqualified. The workforce is composed of at least as many doctors as nurses making for an inefficient skill-mix. Women comprise only one-third of the workforce. Most workers are located in urban areas and in the private sector. States with poorer health and service use outcomes have a lower health worker density. Conclusions: Among the important human resources challenges that India faces is increasing the presence of qualified health workers in underserved areas and a more efficient skill mix. An important first step is to ensure the availability of reliable and comprehensive workforce information through live workforce registers.read more
Citations
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Challenges to effective cancer control in China, India, and Russia
Paul E. Goss,Kathrin Strasser-Weippl,Brittany L. Lee-Bychkovsky,Brittany L. Lee-Bychkovsky,Lei Fan,Lei Fan,Junjie Li,Junjie Li,Yanin Chavarri-Guerra,Pedro E.R. Liedke,C S Pramesh,Tanja Badovinac-Crnjevic,Yuri Sheikine,Yuri Sheikine,Zhu Chen,You-Lin Qiao,Z Shao,Yi-Long Wu,Daiming Fan,Louis W.C. Chow,Jun Wang,Qiong Zhang,Shiying Yu,Gordon C Shen,Gordon C Shen,Jie He,Arnie Purushotham,Richard Sullivan,Rajendra A. Badwe,Shripad Banavali,Reena Nair,Lalit Kumar,Purvish M. Parikh,Somasundarum Subramanian,Pankaj Chaturvedi,Subramania Iyer,Surendra S Shastri,Raghunadhrao Digumarti,Enrique Soto-Perez-de-Celis,Dauren Adilbay,Vladimir Semiglazov,Sergey Orlov,Dilyara Kaidarova,Ilya Tsimafeyeu,Sergei Tatishchev,Kirill D. Danishevskiy,Marc Hurlbert,Caroline Vail,Jessica St. Louis,A. Chan +49 more
TL;DR: The overall state of health and cancer control in each country is described and additional specific issues for consideration are described: for China, access to care, contamination of the environment, and cancer fatalism and traditional medicine; for India, affordability of care, provision of adequate health personnel, and sociocultural barriers to cancer control.
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Next generation maternal health: external shocks and health-system innovations
Margaret E Kruk,Stephanie A Kujawski,Cheryl A. Moyer,Richard Adanu,Kaosar Afsana,Jessica Cohen,Amanda Glassman,Alain B. Labrique,K. Srinath Reddy,Gavin Yamey +9 more
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Size, composition and distribution of health workforce in India: why, and where to invest?
Anup Karan,Himanshu Negandhi,Suhaib Hussain,Tomas Zapata,Dilip Mairembam,Hilde De Graeve,James Buchan,Sanjay Zodpey +7 more
TL;DR: India needs to invest in HRH for increasing the number of active health workers and also improve the skill-mix which requires investment in professional colleges and technical education.
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Composition and distribution of the health workforce in India: estimates based on data from the National Sample Survey.
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Human resources for health: overcoming the crisis
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