450 research outputs found
For money or service? a cross-sectional survey of preference for financial versus non-financial rural practice characteristics among ghanaian medical students
Abstract
Background
Health worker shortage and maldistribution are among the biggest threats to health systems in Africa. New medical graduates are prime targets for recruitment to deprived rural areas. However, little research has been done to determine the influence of workers' background and future plans on their preference for rural practice incentives and characteristics. The purpose of this study was to identify determinants of preference for rural job characteristics among fourth year medical students in Ghana.
Methods
We asked fourth-year Ghanaian medical students to rank the importance of rural practice attributes including salary, infrastructure, management style, and contract length in considering future jobs. We used bivariate and multivariate ordinal logistic regression to estimate the association between attribute valuation and students' socio-demographic background, educational experience, and future career plans.
Results
Of 310 eligible fourth year medical students, complete data was available for 302 students (97%). Students considering emigration ranked salary as more important than students not considering emigration, while students with rural living experience ranked salary as less important than those with no rural experience. Students willing to work in a rural area ranked infrastructure as more important than students who were unwilling, while female students ranked infrastructure as less important than male students. Students who were willing to work in a rural area ranked management style as a more important rural practice attribute than those who were unwilling to work in a rural area. Students studying in Kumasi ranked contract length as more important than those in Accra, while international students ranked contract length as less important than Ghanaian students.
Conclusions
Interventions to improve rural practice conditions are likely to be more persuasive than salary incentives to Ghanaian medical students who are willing to work in rural environments a priori. Policy experiments should test the impact of these interventions on actual uptake by students upon graduation.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112499/1/12913_2011_Article_1837.pd
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Nuclear receptors in vascular biology
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Author correction : a global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space
Correction to: Scientific Data https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0344-7, published online 08 January 202
Author correction : a global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space
Correction to: Scientific Data https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0344-7, published online 08 January 202
Human resources for health and burden of disease: an econometric approach
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The effect of health workers on health has been proven to be important for various health outcomes (e.g. mortality, coverage of immunisation or skilled birth attendants). The study aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between health workers and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which represents a much broader concept of health outcome, including not only mortality but also morbidity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cross-country multiple regression analyses were undertaken, with DALYs and DALYs disaggregated according to the three different groups of diseases as the dependent variable. Aggregate health workers and disaggregate physicians, nurses, and midwives were included as independent variables, as well as a variable accounting for the skill mix of professionals. The analysis also considers controlling for the effects of income, income distribution, percentage of rural population with access to improved water source, and health expenditure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This study presents evidence of a statistically negative relationship between the density of health workers (especially physicians) and the DALYs. An increase of one unit in the density of health workers per 1000 will decrease, on average, the total burden of disease between 1% and 3%. However, in line with previous findings in the literature, the density of nurses and midwives could not be said to be statistically associated to DALYs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>If countries increase their health worker density, they will be able to reduce significantly their burden of disease, especially the burden associated to communicable diseases. This study represents supporting evidence of the importance of health workers for health.</p
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