Recently, World Population and Health published a journal issue dedicated to exploring the challenges faced by the global health workforce. Drawing on IntraHealth’s experiences addressing health workforce issues, several IntraHealth leaders and staff contributed:

• “The Global Health Initiative and the Health Workforce” by Maurice I. Middleberg
• “Will They Stay or Will They Go? Putting Theory into Practice to Guide Effective Workforce Retention Mechanisms” by Barbara Stilwell
• “Making Non-discrimination and Equal Opportunity a Reality in Kenya's Health Provider Education System: Results of a Gender Analysis” by Constance Newman and several colleagues.

Guest editor Bruce Fried explains that the issue aims to bring together various topics often covered in the literature on the global health workforce. These include quantitative approaches to measuring workforce needs; how to attract, retain, and deploy an effective health workforce; the links between health indicators and the health workforce; and human resources management and systems including concerns of discrimination.

Fried writes: “Workforce issues will continue to present challenges in years to come, particularly as we see a global increase in the aging of the population and the need for not only a larger health workforce, but one that has the competency to work with a broad range of health issues. We hope that this issue of World Health and Population stimulates interest among our readership in the continuous search for new and innovative solutions.”