Managing a Health Workforce Crisis: Lessons from the Global Context

Are countries with a critical shortage of health workers all alike, in terms of their health outcomes?

Family Planning and Access to Health Workers

Amid the worldwide health worker shortage, some low-income countries are managing to show impressive levels of modern contraceptive use. How does access to skilled health workers affect family planning use, and what are some countries doing differently?

Global Health: A Historic and Momentous Movement

I just returned from listening to a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Great strides are being made in bringing HIV/AIDS under control.

The Key to Progress: Health Workforce Lessons from the Family Planning Movement

One of the great privileges of my life has been to know bold leaders in family planning and reproductive health.

Thoughts on Motivating Health Workers

Health workers must be retained, productive, and caring if the huge deficits in access to health workers are to be addressed.

Creative Approaches to the Global Health Workforce Crisis

Five years ago the World Health Organization told us that 57 countries had a critical shortage of health workers—fewer than 2.3 service providers for every thousand people. Today, all 57 countries are still below this threshold. What’s holding us back from faster progress?

Global Health and American Moral Power

My parents survived the Holocaust; they were Jewish children who spent the war in hiding in France. After the war, they received CARE packages from America. The Marshall Plan helped rebuild France. I once asked my mother what this meant to her. She said, “After all we had been through, it reminded me that there were still good people in the world.”

Ensuring a Legacy: The Health Workforce Component of the Global Health Initiative

When we talk about the “health workforce crisis” or “human resources for health,” this abstract language can obscure the suffering of people in need.

Key Elements of a Health Workforce Strategy for the Global Health Initiative

In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman is likely to deliver her baby without a skilled birth attendant, making her chance of dying unacceptably high.

Why the Global Health Initiative Needs a Health Workforce Strategy

Entering a one-room health clinic in Cambodia’s Pursat Province, I saw a heavily pregnant woman suffering on the dirt floor. A midwife was the lone health worker staffing this rural post.