- Name
- Health worker density and distribution
- Indicator purpose
- The purpose of this indicator is to measure number of healthcare workers.
- Abstract
- This indicator provides number of health workers per 1,000 population. Health care workers include active physicians, physician assistants, advanced practice registered nurse, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialist, certified registered nurse anaesthetists, and advance practice nurse midwives.
- Contact organization / person
- Ministry of Health
- Unit of measure
- Rate per 1,000 population
- Other characteristics
- The figures for number of medical doctors (including generalist and specialist medical practitioners) depending on the nature of the original data source may include practising medical doctors only or all registered medical doctors.
The figures for number of nursing and midwifery include nursing personnel and midwifery personnel, whenever available. In many countries, nurses trained with midwifery skills are counted and reported as nurses. This makes the distinction between nursing personnel and midwifery personnel difficult to draw.
The figures for number of dentists include dentists in the given national and/or subnational area. Depending on the nature of the original data source may include practising (active) only or all registered in the health occupation. The ISCO -08 codes included here are 2261.
The figures for number of pharmacists include in the given national and/or subnational area. Depending on the nature of the original data source may include practising (active) only or all registered in the health occupation. The ISCO -08 codes that relate to this occupation is 2262.
- Classification used
- Density of medical doctors: The density of medical doctors is defined as the number of medical doctors, including generalists and specialist medical practitioners per 10,000 population in the given national and/or subnational area. The International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) unit group codes included in this category are 221, 2211 and 2212 of ISCO-08.
Density of nursing and midwifery personnel: The density of nursing and midwifery personnel is defined as the number of nursing and midwifery personnel per 10,000 population in the given national and/or subnational area. The ISCO-08 codes included in this category are 2221, 2222, 3221 and 3222.
Density of dentists: The density of dentists is defined as the number of dentists per 10,000 population in the given national and/or subnational area. The ISCO-08 codes included in this category are 2261.
Density of pharmacists: The density of pharmacists is defined as the number of pharmacists per 10,000 population in the given national and/or subnational area. The ISCO-08 codes included in this category are 2262.
- Disaggregation
- by cadre, by National level data.
- Key statistical concepts
- SDG 3.C.1=(Number of health workers by cadre ) / (Total population)
- Recommended uses
- The correlation between the availability of health workers and coverage of health interventions suggests that the public's health suffers when health workers are scarce. This indicator can be used to assist the Ministry of Health in making sure health worker density increases.
- Other comments
- All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.
- Target 2030
- 3.c. Substantially increase health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce in developing countries, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States
