It’s World Health Day. The W.H.O. calls shortages in healthcare workforces a “strategic priority.”
April 7, 2023
Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrates its 75th annual World Health Day. In observance, the GOI is calling attention to global workforce shortages in healthcare, arguably the greatest workforce challenge faced across the world.
The world does not and–for the foreseeable future–will not have enough doctors, nurses, and other caregivers to satisfy global health needs. And while every region in the world is likely to experience workforce shortages, they are expected to be concentrated in lower- and middle-income countries. Rural regions too are more likely to experience shortages.
In a vicious cycle, workforce shortages in healthcare can both cause and be caused by global inequalities. Health professionals often out-migrate to wealthier regions for higher pay, leaving behind too few health workers to meet local needs—which in turn can harm local population health and economic output. Moreover, workforce shortages in healthcare—because they make health systems less resilient to stress—can threaten economic and political stability.
For these and other reasons, the WHO has called for Member States of the United Nations to treat shortages of healthcare workers as an urgent “strategic priority.”
To prevent the worst disruptions of workforce shortages, countries worldwide will need to bolster their workforce education systems to ensure they have enough healthcare workers with the right skills.
How serious is the workforce shortage?
According to its most recent estimates, the WHO predicts a global shortage of 10 million health workers by 2030. In other words, by that year, the world will be short the 10 million workers it would need to ensure “universal health coverage.”
That estimate may be low. It is based on pre-pandemic data and, compared to other estimates, is optimistic. According to the WHO’s own reporting, as many as 180,000 healthcare workers may have died because of COVID-19 between Jan. 2020 and May 2021 alone. Other pandemic-related outcomes—like injury, trauma, and burnout—have likely forced more healthcare professionals out of the workforce as well.
Even without the pandemic clouding the waters, the WHO’s estimate of workforce shortages is drastically lower than others offered up in peer-reviewed literature. According to a recent study in The Lancet, even before the pandemic in 2019, there was a global health worker shortage of an astounding 43 million. For comparison, using pre-pandemic data, the WHO recently estimated that the world experienced a shortage of 15 million healthcare workers in 2022—or 28 million workers less than the estimate given in The Lancet.
What should be done to reduce the shortage?
Whatever the exact extent of the workforce shortage, its durability is clear, as is the urgency to act. Here are a few resources for more information on how to reduce the shortage.
- WHO, Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: In 2014, the World Health Assembly voted to request that the WHO Director-General develop a strategy for reducing workforce shortages in healthcare. The outcome was this report published in 2016. The report includes high-level suggestions for aligning workforce education systems with health demands.
- WHO, State of the World’s Nursing 2020: This report provides current information about global nursing shortages and shows further the urgency to invest in education for building healthcare workforces.
- WHO, Health Workforce topic page: The WHO also provides this overview and hub for resources on challenges facing the global health workforce.
- McKinsey & Company, Care for the Caretakers: Building the Global Public Health Workforce: This report offers an overview high-level strategies for reducing workforce shortages. Usefully, the report also covers emerging, post-pandemic human-resource needs in healthcare settings, such as greater demand for behavioral-health professionals and climate change specialists.
- Global Health Workforce Network: Operating within WHO, the network is “a global mechanism for stakeholder consultation, dialogue, and coordination.” It invites participation in what it calls “hubs,” each devoted to a different issue in developing workforces.