Cross-posted from: "[health-vn discussion group]" <health-vn@anu.edu.au>
Health workforce retention in remote and rural areas: call for papers for WHO Bulletin special theme issue
Carmen Dolea, Jean-Marc Braichet & Daniel MP Shaw
WHO Bulletin, July 2009
"Although approximately one half of the global population lives in rural areas, these people are served by only 38% of the total nursing workforce and by less than a quarter of the total physicians’ workforce. At the country level, imbalances in the distribution of health workers are even more prominent, in both developed and developing countries. Without local access to well trained and motivated health workers, it is unlikely that communities will have access to important primary health care services to respond to priority health needs and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals....
....In this context, WHO has recently launched a programme of work to support countries to increase access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention. The programme consists of three strategic pillars: building the evidence base; supporting countries to implement and evaluate effective strategies; and producing evidence-based recommendations to improve retention of health workers in remote and rural areas. An important part of this programme is the work on expanding the knowledge base and the evidence on effective strategies and policies that countries can use to address the issue of inequitable distribution of health workers in remote and rural areas...
....authors are invited to submit articles as a contribution to a special theme issue that will explore the challenges of health worker retention in remote and rural areas. Papers should aim at filling the gaps in the current knowledge on costs of implementing rural retention strategies and incentive schemes, and the extent to which context influences the design, implementation and the impact of various strategies. Innovative methodological papers that examine the monitoring and impact evaluation of various strategies are also encouraged, in particular with a view to understanding the long-term effects and sustainability of retention strategies...
Manuscripts on any of the above topics should be submitted to:
http://submit.bwho.org by 1 October 2009."
The special issue will be published in Spring 2010, to coincide with the launch of WHO Global Recommendations on increasing access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention.
A copy of the editorial call for papers is attached [*] and can also be found at: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/09-068494/en/index.html
For more information please contact: hrhinfo@who.int
Daniel M. P. Shaw
Technical Officer
Health Workforce Retention and Migration (HMR)
Department of Human Resources for Health (HRH)
Health Systems and Services (HSS)
World Health Organization (WHO)
mailto:shawd@who.int