The World Health Report 2006 - Summary of Chapters
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The world health report 2006 - working together for health
Website: http://www.who.int/whr/2006/en/index.html
Full report [PDF 6.83 Mb]
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/whr06_en.pdf
World Health Organization - April 2006
Report by chapter
- Chapter 1: Health workers: a global profile
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/chapter1/en/index.html
Health workers are people whose job it is to protect and improve
the health of their communities. Together these health workers,
in all their diversity, make up the global health workforce.
This chapter gives an overview of what is known about them. It
describes the size and distribution of the workforce, and some
of its characteristics, including how much it costs. It shows
that there is a substantial shortage of health workers to meet
health needs, but that shortages are not universal, even across
low income countries. The chapter then considers how much it
would cost to scale up training to meet this shortfall and pay
health workers subsequently.
- Chapter 2: Responding to urgent health needs
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/chapter2/en/index.html
This chapter identifies some of the most important performance
challenges facing health systems and the global health workforce
today, examines the ways in which the health workforce is meet-
ing them, and suggests how these responses can be improved.
These challenges are, first, to scale up interventions to attain
the health-related MDGs; second, to shift successfully to commu-
nity-based and patient-centred paradigms of care for the treat-
ment of chronic diseases; third, to tackle the problems posed by
disasters and outbreaks; and fourth, to preserve health services
in conflict and post-conflict states.
- Chapter 3: Preparing the health workforce
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/chapter3/en/index.html
The previous chapter provided an overview of the enormous chal-
lenges facing the health workforce. Chapter 3 and the following
two chapters deal with many of these challenges, using the
framework of strategies to train, sustain and retain the work-
force. This chapter is about preparation: getting it right at
the beginning; giving the right training to the right people to
create an effective workforce for the delivery of health care.
It focuses on the entry of health workers into the workforce and
on the health training institutions - schools, universities and
training colleges - which provide them with the knowledge and
competencies for the jobs they will be required to do.
- Chapter 4: Making the most of existing health workers
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/chapter4/en/index.html
A country's health workforce is made up of health workers who
are at many different stages of their working lives; they work
in many different organizations and under changing conditions
and pressures. Whatever the circumstances, an effective work-
force strategy has to focus on three core challenges: improving
recruitment, helping the existing workforce to perform better,
and slowing the rate at which workers leave the health work-
force. This chapter explores the second of these challenges: op-
timizing the performance of current workers.
- Chapter 5: Managing exits from the workforce
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/chapter5/en/index.html
Each year, substantial numbers of health workers leave the
health workforce, either temporarily or permanently. These exits
can provoke shortages if workers who leave are not replaced, and
such shortages compromise the delivery and quality of health
services (1, 2). Chapter 3 discussed the routes new workers take
into the workforce; this chapter examines the other end of the
spectrum - the various ways in which workers depart active ser-
vice. It also suggests ways of managing exits in times of worker
shortage as well as in times of surplus, in order to optimize
the performance of the health workforce. Finally, it reviews and
analyses the factors that influence exits and proposes strate-
gies for managing them.
- Chapter 6: Formulating national health workforce strategies
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/chapter6/en/index.html
The ultimate goal of health workforce strategies is a delivery
system that can guarantee universal access to health care and
social protection to all citizens in every country. There is no
global blueprint that describes how to get there - each nation
must devise its own plan. Effective workforce strategies must be
matched to a country's unique situation and based on a social
consensus.
- Chapter 7: Working together, within and across countries
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/chapter7/en/index.html
There are five broad areas of concern that impel countries to
look beyond their borders and work together with others in order
to address issues of human resources for health more effec-
tively.
Statistical annex Annexes by tables
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/annex/en/index.html
- Director General's Message & Overview [pdf 591 kb]:
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/06_overview_en.pdf
- Overview in Arabic [pdf 2.32 Mb]:
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/06_overview_ar.pdf
- Overview Chinese [pdf 3.05 Mb]:
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/06_overview_ch.pdf
- Overview in Russian [pdf 2.38 Mb]:
http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2006/06_overview_ru.pdf
- Overview in Spanish: [pdf 589 kb]:
http://www.who.int/whr/2006/whr06_overview_es.pdf