Contribution of health workforce to health outcomes: empirical evidence from Vietnam

Human Resources for Health

Research

Thi Minh Le¹  Tolib Mirzoev²  Mai Phuong Nguyen³ 

[1] Hanoi University of Public Health, 1A Duc Thang, Duc Thang ward, Bac Tu Liem district, Hanoi, Vietnam;Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds, Charles Thackrah Building, 101 Clarendon Road, LS2 9LJ, Leeds, United Kingdom;Vietnam Ministry of Health, 138A Giang Vo street, Ba Dinh district, Hanoi, Vietnam;

关键词: Health workforce;    Human resources for health;    Health outcomes;    Infant mortality;    Under-five mortality;    Life expectancy;    Vietnam;    Asia;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12960-016-0165-0

 received in 2016-03-17, accepted in 2016-11-01,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn Vietnam, a lower-middle income country, while the overall skill- and knowledge-based quality of health workforce is improving, health workers are disproportionately distributed across different economic regions. A similar trend appears to be in relation to health outcomes between those regions. It is unclear, however, whether there is any relationship between the distribution of health workers and the achievement of health outcomes in the context of Vietnam. This study examines the statistical relationship between the availability of health workers and health outcomes across the different economic regions in Vietnam.MethodsWe constructed a panel data of six economic regions covering 8 years (2006–2013) and used principal components analysis regressions to estimate the impact of health workforce on health outcomes. The dependent variables representing the outcomes included life expectancy at birth, infant mortality, and under-five mortality rates. Besides the health workforce as our target explanatory variable, we also controlled for key demographic factors including regional income per capita, poverty rate, illiteracy rate, and population density.ResultsThe numbers of doctors, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists have been rising in the country over the last decade. However, there are notable differences across the different categories. For example, while the numbers of nurses increased considerably between 2006 and 2013, the number of pharmacists slightly decreased between 2011 and 2013. We found statistically significant evidence of the impact of density of doctors, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists on improvement to life expectancy and reduction of infant and under-five mortality rates.ConclusionsAvailability of different categories of health workforce can positively contribute to improvements in health outcomes and ultimately extend the life expectancy of populations. Therefore, increasing investment into more equitable distribution of four main categories of health workforce (doctors, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists) can be an important strategy for improving health outcomes in Vietnam and other similar contexts. Future interventions will also need to consider an integrated approach, building on the link between the health and the development.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2016