Global health workforce shortage study

A new study published in The Lancet Public Health by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) provides the first global, sex-disaggregated estimates of 20 health worker cadres across 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2023. The study finds that the global health workforce nearly tripled from 40.9 million to 122.1 million workers, with women accounting for 71.4% of the growth and representing 68.9% of all health workers in 2023. Despite this expansion, the world faces a shortage of 34.4 million doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, and pharmacists needed to achieve moderate universal health coverage. Shortages are most severe in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, with nursing density as low as 3.2 per 10,000 in Chad and 3.3 in Madagascar, compared to 171.7 in Belgium and 161.4 in the United States. The study highlights that women remain concentrated in lower-paid professions with fewer leadership opportunities, and calls for gender-responsive policies and sustained investment in health worker education, recruitment, retention, and working conditions. The findings provide minimum workforce density benchmarks to guide countries in planning for universal health coverage and progress toward Sustainable Development Goals.