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Research to support evidence-informed decisions on optimizing gender equity in health workforce policy and planning

This thematic series in Human Resources for Health explores how enhanced research, monitoring, and evaluation of health workforce policy and planning options can help to optimize gender equity within and across health occupations. The series aims to support countries at all levels of development striving to achieve and sustain the global development goals of health workforce strengthening and gender equality.

The collection includes reviews and original research articles advancing the use of qualitative and quantitative data and methodologies through a gender equity lens across different country contexts. Not all sex-disaggregated analyses will yield findings of inequalities, but it remains important that gender is considered as a core component to human resources for health policy evaluation.

The WHO Gender Equity Hub advocates for the improvement of data and evidence in the field, and therefore it supports  this thematic series as part of the ongoing work on gender equity in the health workforce.  Any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in the Editorial or any article published in this series are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the WHO.


The series  is now closed to new submissions.

Series Editor, Neeru Gupta.

  1. Sexual harassment is a ubiquitous problem that prevents women’s integration and retention in the workforce. Its prevalence had been documented in previous health sector studies in Uganda, indicating that it af...

    Authors: Constance Newman, Alice Nayebare, Stella Neema, Allan Agaba and Lilian Perry Akello
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2021 19:59
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Gender roles and relations affect both the drivers and experiences of health worker migration, yet policy responses rarely consider these gender dimensions. This lack of explicit attention from source country ...

    Authors: Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Vivien Runnels, Jelena Atanackovic, Denise Spitzer and Margaret Walton-Roberts
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2021 19:40
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Increasing feminization of medical professions is well-acknowledged. However, this does not always equate to equitable representation of women within medicine, regarding their socio-demographic indicators, reg...

    Authors: Ritika Tiwari, Angelique Wildschut-February, Lungiswa Nkonki, René English, Innocent Karangwa and Usuf Chikte
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2021 19:27
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Little is known about gender differences in general practitioner (GP) turnover. It is important to understand potential divergence given both the feminization of the Australian GP workforce and projected short...

    Authors: E. Anne Bardoel, Grant Russell, Jenny Advocat, Susan Mayson and Margaret Kay
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:99
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. The Lancet Commission for Global Surgery identified an adequate surgical workforce as one indicator of surgical care accessibility. Many countries where women in surgery are underrepresented struggle to meet t...

    Authors: Meredith D. Xepoleas, Naikhoba C. O. Munabi, Allyn Auslander, William P. Magee and Caroline A. Yao
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:80
    Content type: Review Published on:

  8. Although pay-for-performance (P4P) among primary care physicians for enhanced chronic disease management is increasingly common, the evidence base is fragmented in terms of socially equitable impacts in achiev...

    Authors: Neeru Gupta and Holly M. Ayles
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:69
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. The third Sustainable Development Goal aims to ensure healthy lives and to promote well-being for all at all ages. The health system plays a key role in achieving these goals and must have sufficient human res...

    Authors: Julio César Montañez-Hernández, Jacqueline Elizabeth Alcalde-Rabanal, Gustavo Humberto Nigenda-López, Gladis Patricia Aristizábal-Hoyos and Lorena Dini
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:40
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Human Resources for Health 2020 18:44

  10. Mozambique’s community health programme has a disproportionate number of male community health workers (known as Agentes Polivalentes Elementares (APEs)). The Government of Mozambique is aiming to increase the...

    Authors: Rosalind Steege, Miriam Taegtmeyer, Sozinho Ndima, Celso Give, Mohsin Sidat, Clara Ferrão and Sally Theobald
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:37
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. Around the world, there is a significant difference in the proportion of women with access to leadership in healthcare with respect to men. This article studies gender imbalance and wage gap in managerial, exe...

    Authors: Lucero Soledad Rivera-Romano, Cristobal Fresno, Enrique Hernández-Lemus, Mireya Martínez-García and Maite Vallejo
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2020 18:21
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. The feminisation of the global health workforce presents a unique challenge for human resource policy and health sector reform which requires an explicit gender focus. Relatively little is known about changes ...

    Authors: Geordan Shannon, Nicole Minckas, Des Tan, Hassan Haghparast-Bidgoli, Neha Batura and Jenevieve Mannell
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2019 17:72
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Human Resources for Health 2019 17:84

  13. Family medicine (FM) residents choose among a range of options as they enter practice, including practice model, clinical domains, settings, and populations. The choices they make have implications for primary...

    Authors: Miriam Ruth Lavergne, Andrea Gonzalez, Megan Alyssa Ahuja, Lindsay Hedden and Rita McCracken
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2019 17:67
    Content type: Research Published on:

  14. Gender equity remains a challenge across various labor markets with the health market being no exception. Despite the increased influx of women into health professions, horizontal and vertical occupational gen...

    Authors: Nour El Arnaout, Rana F. Chehab, Bayan Rafii and Mohamad Alameddine
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2019 17:52
    Content type: Review Published on:

  16. Despite increasing popularity among health organizations of pay for performance (P4P) for the provision of comprehensive care for chronic non-communicable diseases, evidence of its effectiveness in improving h...

    Authors: Neeru Gupta, René Lavallée and James Ayles
    Citation: Human Resources for Health 2019 17:40
    Content type: Research Published on: