Abbreviated Name:
Density of health workers
Indicator Name:
Density of Health workers: Physicians, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and dentists
Domain:
Health System Response/ Health workforce
Related Terms:
Health workforce
Definition:
The number of health workers available in a country relative to the total population.
Measurment Method:
Ideally assessed through routine administrative records on numbers of active health workers compiled, updated and submitted regularly (e.g. quarterly) by district health officers, payroll registrars, individual health facilities (both public and private) and/or health professional regulatory bodies, and collated into a centralized HRIS or database maintained by the ministry of health or other mandated agency. Information on the stock of health workers and on the total population should be periodically validated and adjusted against data from a population census or other nationally representative source.
Numerator:
The absolute number of registered health workers at a given time in a given country or region (that is, all persons eligible to participate in the national health labor market by virtue of their skills, age, ability and physical presence in the country).
Denominator
The total population for the same geographical area
Estimation method:
If there is a national database or registry, there should be regular assessment of completeness using census data, professional association registers, facility censuses, etc. Health worker concentration: percentage of all health workers working in urban areas divided by percentage of total population in urban areas.
Disaggregation:
Urban vs. rural, regions, provinces, districts, male vs female, national vs non national- Managing authority: public, private not-for-profit, private for profit, and other (such as parastatals).
Primary data sources:
Routine health facility reporting system, population-based surveys, administrative records
Alternate data sources:
National health workforce database (aggregate), HRH Observatory, HRH information system
Measurment frequency:
Monthly, quarterly or annually for routine administrative records. A validation exercise should be conducted every 3–5 years against a national population-based or facility-based assessment
