Putting health workers at the centre of health system investments in COVID-19 and beyond

Deussom, Rachel, Lal, Arush, Frymus, Diana, Cole, Kimberly, Politico, Mary Ruth S., Saldaña, Kelly, Vasireddy, Vamsi, Khangamwa, Glenda and Jaskiewicz, Wanda (2022) Putting health workers at the centre of health system investments in COVID-19 and beyond. Family medicine and community health, 10 (2). ISSN 2009-8774

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the implications of chronic underinvestment in health workforce development, particularly in resource-constrained health systems. Inadequate health workforce diversity, insufficient training and remuneration, and limited support and protection reduce health system capacity to equitably maintain health service delivery while meeting urgent health emergency demands. Applying the Health Worker Life Cycle Approach provides a useful conceptual framework that adapts a health labour market approach to outline key areas and recommendations for health workforce investment-building, managing and optimising-to systematically meet the needs of health workers and the systems they support. It also emphasises the importance of protecting the workforce as a cross-cutting investment, which is especially important in a health crisis like COVID-19. While the global pandemic has spurred intermittent health workforce investments required to immediately respond to COVID-19, applying this 'lifecycle approach' to guide policy implementation and financing interventions is critical to centering health workers as stewards of health systems, thus strengthening resilience to public health threats, sustainably responding to community needs and providing more equitable, patient-centred care.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://fmch.bmj.com/
Additional Information:	© 2022 The Authors
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	25 May 2022 23:18
Last Modified:	17 Apr 2024 22:42
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/115208

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