https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/6101/ Who Are Direct Care Workers and How Might Federal Policy Changes Impact the Workforce? #HealthWorkforce #LocalGovernment #LongTermCare #StateGovernment
#health-workforce — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #health-workforce, aggregated by home.social.
-
WHO Taps South Korea’s Regulatory Expertise on Medicine and Vaccine Safety
The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated the Global Harmonization Centre (GHC) in the Republic of Korea as…
#EuropeSays #Korea #KR #SouthKorea #GHC #GlobalHarmonisationCentre #HealthProductRegulation #HealthWorkforce #MedicineSafety #MFDS #NIFDS #publichealth #Quality-AssuredMedicines #RegulatorySystems #RegulatoryTraining #RepublicofKorea #VaccineSafety #who
https://www.europesays.com/korea/136197/ -
How can Task Shifting and Task Sharing strengthen healthcare?
In Kano State, the approach is empowering community health workers and improving maternal and newborn health outcomes.
✍️Bashar Abubakar
#HealthWorkforce #GlobalHealth #SHRH
📖 ➡️ & 🔁🙏 healthpolicy-watch.news/from-waiting...
From Waiting Room To Labour: H... -
https://www.europesays.com/africa/?p=308329 Putting more health workers where they are needed most in Zimbabwe | WHO #HealthWorkforce #zimbabwe
-
https://www.europesays.com/africa/149809/ Only 2 counties meet SDG target as 27 fall into danger zone #ChildSurvival #CountyHealthDisparities #Headlines #Health #HealthInfrastructure #HealthWorkforce #InfantMortality #Kenya #KenyaMinistryOfHealth #Kenya’sNeonatalCrisis:Only2CountiesMeetSDGTargetAs27FallIntoDangerZone #MaternalHealth #NeonatalMortality #NewbornCare #SDG32
-
Rethinking human resources for malaria control and elimination in Africa
The comprehensive policy review by Halima Mwenesi and colleagues “Rethinking human resources and capacity building needs for malaria control and elimination in Africa” argues that the stagnation in global malaria progress is fundamentally a human resources crisis rather than solely a biological or technical failure.
The authors posit that the current workforce is insufficient in number and ill-equipped with the necessary skills to navigate the complex transition from malaria control to elimination.
It is a critical indictment of the status quo in malaria training and offers a roadmap for structural reform.
This article summarizes key points from the policy review and examines how The Geneva Learning Foundation’s peer learning-to-action model could be used by national programmes to transform the health workforce.
The mismatch between training and operational needs
The authors identify a severe imbalance in training priorities where capacity building has historically favored biomedical and basic sciences such as entomology and parasitology.
While essential, this focus has led to a neglect of operational, translational, and implementation sciences.
The report highlights that while the global community produces high-level scientists who understand the parasite, it fails to produce “translational scientists” who can bridge the gap between global guidelines and local realities.
This has resulted, they argue, in a workforce lacking the practical competencies to operationalize complex elimination strategies that require precision and adaptation.
The deficit in leadership and social sciences
A major finding is the specific deficit in so-called “soft skills” and social sciences which are increasingly critical as programs move toward elimination.
The authors argue that modern malaria control requires competencies in leadership, health diplomacy, anthropology, sociology, and political analysis.
Program managers currently lack the training to navigate complex political landscapes, mobilize domestic resources, or engage effectively with communities to sustain interventions.
The review emphasizes that understanding community behavior and social determinants is as critical as understanding vector behavior but this is rarely reflected in curricula.
Data illiteracy and the failure of surveillance
The paper identifies pervasive “data illiteracy” across the workforce.
Health workers collect vast amounts of data to satisfy donor reporting requirements but often lack the skills to interpret or use it for local decision-making.
This results in a “data-rich but information-poor” environment.
As countries move toward elimination, the need for real-time, granular surveillance becomes paramount.
The current workforce is unable to perform the rapid data analysis required to detect and respond to outbreaks at the sub-national level.
Fragmentation and lack of coordination
The review critiques the fragmentation of investments in training, capacity-building, and technical assistance driven by donor agendas.
It notes a lack of coordination among donors and agencies which leads to a proliferation of uncoordinated short courses and workshops that do not necessarily align with national strategic plans.
This fragmentation is exacerbated by a lack of data on the workforce itself.
Many countries lack a central registry of malaria personnel which makes it impossible to forecast needs, plan for attrition, or manage career pathways.
The call for structural transformation
The authors call for a radical shift toward “South-South” collaboration where African institutions take the lead in training.
They advocate for moving away from ad hoc workshops toward institutionalized, long-term capacity building.
Crucially, they recommend the use of digital platforms to democratize access to knowledge for mid-level and community-based cadres who are often excluded from elite fellowships.
How can learning science help transform malaria training investments into tangible health worker performance?
For a global health epidemiologist accustomed to viewing disease control through the lens of biological interventions and coverage rates, the human resource crisis described by Mwenesi and colleagues represents a “delivery failure” of validated tools.
The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) learning science model functions as a structural intervention designed to repair broken delivery mechanisms in global health and humanitarian response.
The following analysis translates the TGLF approach into terms recognizable to an epidemiologist or program manager who operates with the assumption that training is primarily about the transmission of technical knowledge.
Moving from passive transmission to implementation fidelity
Epidemiologists understand that a vaccine with high efficacy in a trial often has low effectiveness in the real world due to poor administration or cold chain failure.
Similarly, Mwenesi et al. identify that technical malaria guidelines fail because the “human infrastructure” cannot implement them.
Traditional training assumes that if you lecture health workers on a protocol, which is a transmission of information, they will execute it.
This is a “single-loop” assumption.
The TGLF model introduces an “implementation loop.”
Instead of merely receiving information, learners in the TGLF network must design a micro-project to apply the new guideline in their specific district, execute it, and report back on the results using their own local data.
This turns the workforce from passive recipients of protocols into active testers of implementation fidelity.
It directly addresses the “translational science” gap identified in the paper by forcing the learner to translate theory into practice immediately.
Sceptics often argue that this approach places an undue burden on an already overworked workforce.
However, the TGLF model embeds learning into the workflow itself.
This is not additional work but rather “learning-based work.”
Participants do not create hypothetical projects.
They identify a bottleneck they are currently facing, such as a specific pocket of malaria transmission, and use the learning cycle to address it.
This transforms the training from an external interruption into an operational support mechanism.
By embedding learning into the workflow, it operationalizes Mwenesi’s call for translational science.
It considers the daily struggle of the health worker as a form of structured scientific inquiry: they hypothesize a solution, test it, and report the results.
This is implementation as science.
Operationalizing data use for local decision-making
Mwenesi notes that health workers collect data but do not use it.
In the TGLF model, data is not something sent “up” to the ministry.
It is the raw material for peer support and feedback.
In a TGLF peer learning exercise, a district medical officer in Ghana shares their case management data to compare performance with a peer in Uganda.
They share because they want to, not because they are required to.
This creates a social incentive to understand and analyze one’s own data.
It builds the “data literacy” the authors call for not through abstract statistics courses but through the practical necessity of explaining one’s own performance to a colleague.
This process transforms data from a compliance burden into a tool for local problem-solving.
Is there a risk that peer learning will pool ignorance?
Is there a valid concern regarding the risk of “pooled ignorance” where peers might reinforce incorrect practices?
The TGLF model mitigates this through “structured emergence.”
The model does not dismiss expert knowledge but uses global guidelines as the “anchor” for local problem-solving.
In this system, a health worker cannot simply state an opinion.
They must submit an action plan that is peer-reviewed against a rubric derived from WHO guidelines.
This process ensures fidelity to technical standards while allowing for necessary local adaptation.
The aggregation of thousands of these peer-reviewed plans creates a new form of rigorous, practice-based evidence that complements expert guidance.
Scaling “soft skills” through structured peer review
The review calls for leadership and diplomacy skills but notes these are hard to teach in workshops.
The TGLF model builds these skills implicitly through its pedagogical structure.
When a participant submits an action plan, they must receive and respond to critical feedback from peers in other countries.
They must negotiate differing viewpoints and defend their technical choices.
This mimics the “health diplomacy” and leadership dynamics required in real-world program management.
Furthermore, because they must engage community stakeholders to implement their projects, they practice the anthropological and social engagement skills Mwenesi identifies as missing.
They learn leadership not by studying a theory of leadership but by leading a change initiative in their facility.
While some experts argue that soft skills require “hard contact” in physical spaces, TGLF results suggest that physical proximity often limits a worker to their known environment and existing biases.
The TGLF model introduces a form of “cosmopolitan localism.”
When a nurse in rural Nigeria must explain her challenge to a peer in urban India, she is forced to articulate her context with a clarity and diplomacy not required when speaking to a neighbor.
This defiance of distance fosters a quantum leap in communication capabilities.
Participants report that the skills learned in negotiating these digital, cross-cultural peer relationships directly translate to better engagement with their physical-world colleagues and community leaders.
Addressing the incentive structure and correcting expertise asymmetry
The paper critiques the “brain drain” and the reliance on experts from the Global North.
TGLF operationalizes the “South-South” collaboration recommended by the authors by creating a flat digital hierarchy.
In this model, the “expert” is not a visiting consultant from Geneva but a peer who has successfully solved the problem in their own context.
A nurse in Nigeria learns how to improve bed net usage from a nurse in Kenya who solved that exact refusal issue last month.
This actually results in greater interest, comprehension, and use of official guidelines.
It also validates local knowledge and creates the “critical mass of thinking professionals” that Mwenesi argues is essential for elimination.
It shifts the source of authority from external experts to the collective intelligence of the network.
Transforming the economy of per diem
A common critique of moving away from face-to-face training is the reliance of health workers on per diems for financial survival.
Mwenesi implies that the current system is unsustainable.
The TGLF model operates on the evidence that per diem-driven training often restricts access to a “training aristocracy” of recurrent participants while excluding the frontline workers who most need the knowledge.
TGLF replaces the financial incentive with a professional survival incentive.
In the Nigeria Immunization Collaborative, over 4,300 health workers participated without per diems.
They did so because the program addressed the specific pain points of their daily work.
This filters the workforce for “positive deviants,” or those with high intrinsic motivation who are most likely to drive elimination efforts, rather than those primarily motivated by daily subsistence allowances.
A “surveillance system” for human resources and performance
Finally, the review notes the lack of registries and data on the workforce itself.
The TGLF digital network acts as a real-time sensor of workforce capacity.
By engaging thousands of health workers simultaneously, the platform generates data on who is active, what problems they are facing, and where their skills are deficient.
For an epidemiologist, this is equivalent to a surveillance system for human resources.
It provides the visibility needed to forecast gaps and target interventions precisely, replacing the “blind” proliferation of uncoordinated workshops with a data-driven approach to capacity building.
Regarding concerns that digital platforms fail in low-resource settings due to poor connectivity, TGLF utilizes a “cognitively quiet” design that functions on low-bandwidth connections and mobile devices.
This design respects the technological reality of the African context.
Data from the Teach to Reach program, which has engaged over 60,000 participants in remote, ongoing peer learning activities , demonstrates that when the technology is adapted to the user rather than the other way around, participation rates exceed those of physical workshops.
This scale allows for the identification of systemic patterns and workforce gaps that would be invisible in a smaller, face-to-face cohort.
Reference
Mwenesi, H., Mbogo, C., Casamitjana, N., Castro, M.C., Itoe, M.A., Okonofua, F., Tanner, M., 2022. Rethinking human resources and capacity building needs for malaria control and elimination in Africa. PLOS Glob Public Health 2, e0000210. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000210
Reda Sadki (2023). How do we reframe health performance management within complex adaptive systems?. Reda Sadki: Learning to make a difference. https://doi.org/10.59350/mx5qr-qet97
Reda Sadki (2024). Prioritizing the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together. Reda Sadki: Learning to make a difference. https://doi.org/10.59350/zzqr4-9g482
Reda Sadki (2024). Protect, invest, together: strengthening health workforce through new learning models. Reda Sadki: Learning to make a difference. https://doi.org/10.59350/g24b4-7fj64
Reda Sadki (2024). What is double-loop learning in global health?. Reda Sadki: Learning to make a difference. https://doi.org/10.59350/s4xtw-b7274
Reda Sadki (2024). World Malaria Day 2024: We need new ways to support health workers leading change with local communities. Reda Sadki: Learning to make a difference. https://doi.org/10.59350/yrn1r-hpz62
#brainDrain #cosmopolitanLocalism #dataQualityAndUse #doubleLoopLearning #HalimaMwenesi #healthWorkerMotivation #healthWorkerPerformance #healthWorkforce #HRH #implementationScience #leadership #learningStrategy #learningBasedWork #localization #malaria #peerLearning #performance #softSkills #TeachToReach #translationalScience -
Closed Hospital Doors Hide Hungary’s Healthcare Crisis https://www.byteseu.com/1571507/ #BudapestHospitals #EmergencyCare #HealthWorkforce #Healthcare #HealthcarePolicy #Hungary #NursingShortage #SzentImreHospital #UnusedHospitalBeds
-
Closed Hospital Doors Hide Hungary’s Healthcare Crisis
While emergency rooms overflow with patients waiting for beds, dozens of wards across Hungary sit locked and empty…
#Hungary #HU #Europe #Europa #EU #Budapesthospitals #Emergencycare #Healthworkforce #healthcare #healthcarepolicy #hír #hungary #Magyarország #nursingshortage #SzentImreHospital #unusedhospitalbeds
https://www.europesays.com/2590453/ -
https://www.europesays.com/2590453/ Closed Hospital Doors Hide Hungary’s Healthcare Crisis #BudapestHospitals #EmergencyCare #HealthWorkforce #healthcare #HealthcarePolicy #hír #hungary #Magyarország #NursingShortage #SzentImreHospital #UnusedHospitalBeds
-
Nursing shortage persists in NC despite recent improvements
By Jaymie Baxley Though North Carolina still has f…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Healthcare #CommunityColleges #Health #Healtheducation #healthworkforce #licensedpracticalnurses #longtermcare #NCCenterontheWorkforceforHealth #NCChamberFoundation #NCGeneralAssembly #NCHealthTalentAlliance #NCHealthcareAssociation #NCNursesAssociation #nursingshortage #registerednurses
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/172027/ -
🗓️ 12-14 November - 2025 European Public Health Conference 📝 Conference themes: #EconomyOfWellbeing #Sustainability #Inclusivity #Diversity #Misinformation #Disinformation #PlanetaryHealth #CommercialDeterminantsOfHealth #PoliticalDeterminantsOfHealth #HealthWorkforce
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:tm5dktqb7jpzclqaxznuff2y/post/3lup3situbs2w -
🗓️ 12-14 November - 2025 European Public Health Conference 📝 Conference themes: #EconomyOfWellbeing #Sustainability #Inclusivity #Diversity #Misinformation #Disinformation #PlanetaryHealth #CommercialDeterminantsOfHealth #PoliticalDeterminantsOfHealth #HealthWorkforce
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:tm5dktqb7jpzclqaxznuff2y/post/3lup3situbs2w -
Bridging the Global Workforce Gap: Planning a #HealthWorkforce for the Future [Promoted content] https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/opinion/bridging-the-global-workforce-gap-planning-a-health-workforce-for-the-future/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
-
RT by @EU_Health: Today is the #NursingAction launch event!
@WHO_Europe and @EU_Commission’s partnership will empower nurses and boost health systems across the EU.
More info here: https://bit.ly/4jh1umj
#HealthWorkforce #Nurses
---
https://nitter.privacydev.net/WHO_Europe/status/1880158623252566261#m -
#OECD report highlights Europe’s #HealthWorkforce crisis: EU countries face an estimated shortage of approximately 1.2 million #doctors, #nurses and #midwives #HealthAtAGlance report 2024 www.oecd.org/en/publicati...
Health at a Glance: Europe 202... -
Strengthening primary health care in a changing climate
A new article by Andy Haines, Elizabeth Wambui Kimani-Murage, and Anya Gopfert, “Strengthening primary health care in a changing climate,” outlines how climate change is already impacting health systems worldwide, with primary health care (PHC) workers bearing the immediate burden of response.
Haines and colleagues make a compelling case for strengthening primary health care (PHC) as a cornerstone of climate-resilient health systems.
First, they note that approximately 90% of essential universal health coverage interventions are delivered through PHC settings, making these facilities and workers the backbone of healthcare delivery.
This is particularly significant because PHC systems address many of the health outcomes most affected by climate change, including non-communicable diseases, childhood undernutrition, and common infectious diseases like malaria, diarrheal diseases, and respiratory infections.
Furthermore, PHC workers are often the first responders to extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves.
They must manage both the immediate health impacts and the longer-term consequences of these events.
This comprehensive view of PHC’s role in climate resilience represents a significant shift from viewing primary care merely as a service delivery mechanism to recognizing it as a crucial component of climate adaptation and health system strengthening.
The authors argue that investing in PHC is not only essential for addressing immediate health needs but also for building long-term resilience to climate-related health threats.
In examining workforce issues, Haines et al. specifically emphasize that “building the capacity of the PHC and public health workforce in emergency preparedness and response to climate-induced risks is crucial for enhancing the resilience of health systems.”
They argue that “the health-care workforce, including multidisciplinary PHC teams, should be provided with training and education on the impacts of climate change on health and the implications for health-care delivery.”
The article specifies that this training should focus on three key areas: “strengthening integrated disease surveillance and response systems,” “diagnosis and management of changing disease patterns (eg, outbreaks of vector-borne diseases in new locations),” and “interpretation and use of available climate, weather, and health data to support planning and management of adaptation and mitigation interventions.”
They mention resources like those proposed by the “WONCA Global Family Doctor Planetary Health Working Party” as instructive for such training.
Although the article emphasizes the role of PHC workers as being “often on the front line of responses to extreme events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves,” it does not discuss mechanisms for capturing or leveraging their experiential knowledge.
This is what they know because they are there every day.
Recommendations follow a traditional institutional approach: strengthen health information systems, build workforce capacity, develop integrated service delivery models, increase funding, and enhance governance.
While these recommendations are well-founded, they primarily envision a top-down flow of knowledge and resources, with health workers positioned as recipients of training and implementers of policies.
The epistemological framework underlying their recommendations reflects what educational theorists would recognize as a transmission model of learning, where knowledge is conceived as flowing primarily from experts to practitioners in a hierarchical manner.
This approach, while valuable for disseminating standardized protocols and evidence-based practices, implicitly positions health workers as passive recipients rather than active knowledge creators and agents of climate-health resilience.
Such a framework potentially undervalues the situated knowledge and practical wisdom (what Aristotle called phronesis) that practitioners develop through direct experience with climate-health challenges in their communities.
It also overlooks the potential for what complexity theorists describe as emergent learning – where new knowledge and practices arise from the dynamic interactions between practitioners facing similar challenges in different contexts.
Our research has documented how health workers are already responding to climate-related health challenges.
For example, observations from more than 1,200 health workers in 68 countries reveal a rich tapestry of local knowledge and insights that often go unrecognized in formal academic and policy discussions
Health workers are already intimate witnesses to the impacts of climate change on the health of the communities they serve, possessing valuable knowledge that should inform both science and policy.
Where Haines sees health workers primarily as implementers of climate-resilient healthcare strategies, we view them as leaders and innovators in climate adaptation.
However, these perspectives need not be mutually exclusive.
TGLF’s model offers a bridge between formal institutional approaches and ground-level experiential knowledge.
New peer learning platforms like Teach to Reach enable rapid sharing of solutions across geographical and institutional boundaries.
This platform enables health workers to be both learners and teachers, sharing successful adaptations while learning from colleagues facing similar challenges in different contexts.
Such participatory approaches also help local knowledge inform global understanding – if global research institutions and funders are willing to listen and learn.
When TGLF gathered observations about climate change impacts on health, we received detailed accounts of everything from disease transmission to healthcare access.
A health worker from Cameroon described how flooding from Mount Cameroon led to deaths in their community.
Another from Kenya shared how changing agricultural patterns forced them to develop new strategies for ensuring safe food access.
Jones, I., Mbuh, C., Sadki, R., Eller, K., Rhoda, D., 2023. On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report. The Geneva Learning Foundation. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10204660
These granular insights complement the broader statistical evidence presented in academic literature, providing crucial context for how climate changes manifest in specific communities.
TGLF’s model demonstrates how digital technologies can democratize knowledge sharing to strengthen scientific evidence and drive locally-led action.
This creates a dynamic knowledge ecosystem that can respond more quickly to emerging challenges than traditional top-down approaches.
Importantly, this model addresses a key gap in Haines’ recommendations: the need for rapid, scalable knowledge sharing among frontline workers.
While formal research and policy development necessarily take time, climate impacts are already affecting communities.
TGLF’s approach enables immediate peer learning while building an evidence base for longer-term policy development.
The model also addresses the issue of trust.
Health workers, as trusted community members, play a crucial role in helping communities make sense of and navigate the changes they are facing.
Their understanding of local contexts and constraints are critical to develop strategies that can actually be implemented.
By combining institutional support with health worker-led local action, we can strengthen health systems to be both technically robust and locally responsive.
Our experience at the Geneva Learning Foundation suggests that new learning and leadership are needed to bridge these approaches, enabling the rapid sharing of both formal and experiential knowledge while building the collective capacity needed to survive the impacts of climate change on our health.
References
Haines, A., Kimani-Murage, E.W., Gopfert, A., 2024. Strengthening primary health care in a changing climate. The Lancet 404, 1620–1622. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)02193-7
Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2024
Share this:
#AndyHaines #AnyaGopfert #climateAndHealth #ElizabethWambuiKimaniMurage #epistemology #globalHealth #healthWorkforce #HumanResourcesForHealth #PHC #phronesis #primaryHealthCare #situatedKnowledge
-
🇺🇳 22 October: #WHO Europe to launch first-of-its-kind survey on #MentalHealth of #HealthWorkforce “Health systems are experiencing increasing pressures, with many #doctors and #nurses reporting poor mental health and working conditions” www.who.int/europe/news-...
WHO/Europe launches first-of-i... -
🇺🇳 22 October: #WHO Europe to launch first-of-its-kind survey on #MentalHealth of #HealthWorkforce “Health systems are experiencing increasing pressures, with many #doctors and #nurses reporting poor mental health and working conditions” www.who.int/europe/news-...
WHO/Europe launches first-of-i... -
🏥 Europe’s #HealthWorkforce shortages are being filled with foreign labour – but it could worsen those gaps elsewhere “Increasing the labour force requires long-term, costly investments, whereas recruiting foreign-trained professionals offers a quicker fix” www.euronews.com/health/2024/...
Which European countries rely ... -
#Italy’s #HealthWorkforce crisis leads to violent attacks on #doctors and #nurses by angry patients and relatives ‘Understaffing and long waiting lists are the main reasons behind patients’ frustration with health workers.’ www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/0...
Italian army will guard a hosp... -
Health Brief: The health workforce has no time to lose https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/health-brief-the-health-workforce-has-no-time-to-lose/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Belgianpresidency #healthworkforce #SANTCommmittee
-
In “Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together,” Agyeman-Manu et al. assert that the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated longstanding health workforce deficiencies globally, especially in under-resourced nations.
With projected shortages of 10 million health workers concentrated in Africa and the Middle East by 2030, the authors urgently call for policymakers to commit to retaining and expanding national health workforces.
They propose common-sense solutions: increased, coordinated financing and collaboration across government agencies managing health, finance, economic development, education and labor portfolios.
But how can such interconnected, long-term investments be designed for maximum sustainable impact?
And what is the role of education?
Rethinking health worker learning
In a 2021 WHO survey across 159 countries, most health workers reported lacking adequate training to respond effectively to pandemic demands. This exposed systemic weaknesses in how health workforces develop skills at scale. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, limitations of traditional learning approaches were already obvious.
Prevailing modalities overly rely on passive knowledge transfer rather than active learner empowerment and engagement with real-world complexities. While assessment and credentialing are important, ultimately learning must be judged by its relevance, application and impact on people’s lives and health systems.
Between April and June 2020, I had the privilege of working with a group of 600 of Scholars of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) from 86 countries. Together, we designed an immersive learning cycle integrating skill-building and peer exchange for those on the frontlines of the epidemic. We called it the “COVID-19 Peer Hub”.
It grew into an ecosystem that connected over 6,000 health professionals across 86 countries to share unfiltered insights, give voice to on-the-ground needs, and turn shared experience into action.
Within three months, a third of participants had already implemented COVID-19 recovery plans, citing peer support as the main driver for turning their commitment into results.
By the end of 2020, TGLF’s immunization platform, network, and community had tripled in size.
In 2022, this network transformed into a Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030).
Informing health workforce decisions
What insights can health workforce policymakers draw from the Geneva Learning Foundation’s unique work to achieve the ambitious growth and support targets outlined by Agyeman-Manu et al.?
First, expert-driven, top-down approaches alone cannot handle emergent real-world complexities. In TGLF’s learning cycles, the most significant learning often occurs in lateral, one-to-one networking meetings between peers. These defy boundaries of geography, gender, ethnicity, religion, and job roles.
Second, thoughtfully-applied technology can exponentially accelerate learning’s reach, access and connections following learner needs. New digital modalities opened by pandemic disruptions must be sustained and optimized post-crisis, despite the tendency to revert back to previous norms of learning through high-cost, low-volume formal trainings and workshop.
Third, relevance heightens learning and application. Learning and teaching should not just be centered on learners’ needs and problems to boost motivation and effectiveness. Learning cannot be detached from its context.
Finally, nurturing cultures that support effective learning matters for performance and human achievement. Systems enabling peer reward and accountability build resilience.
Protect, invest, together in a learning workforce
Health policymakers are manifesting intent to act on the health workforce crisis.
Alongside urgent investments, applying systemic perspectives from learning innovations like those The Geneva Learning Foundation has pioneered presents a path to growing motivated, capable workforces ready for the challenges ahead.
Rethinking assumptions opens eyes – when we commit to support health workers holistically, the rewards radiate across health ecosystems.
Reference: Agyeman-Manu et al. Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together. The Lancet Global Health (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00224-3
Share this:
#healthWorkforce #healthWorkforceShortage #HRH #HumanResourcesForHealth #learningCulture #performance
-
The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Charlotte Mbuh spoke today at the COP28 Health Pavilion in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Learn more…
Good afternoon. I am Charlotte Mbuh. I have worked for the health of children and families in Cameroon for over 15 years.
I am one of more than 5,500 health workers from 68 countries who have connected to share our observations of how climate is affecting the health of those we serve.
“Going back home to the community where I grew up as a child, I was shocked to see that most of the rivers we used to swim and fish in have all dried up, and those that are still there have become very shallow so that you can easily walk through a river you required a boat to cross in years past.”
These are the words of Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, a health worker from Nigeria.
Dr Kumbha Gopi, a health worker from India said: “The use of motor vehicles has led to an increase in air pollution and we see respiratory problems and skin diseases”.
Climate change is hurting the health of those we serve. And it is getting worse.
Few here would deny that health workers are an essential voice to listen to in order to understand climate impacts on health.
Yet, a man named Jacob on social media snapped: “Since when are health workers the authority on air pollution?”
Here are the words of Bie Lilian Mbando, a health worker from my country: “Where I live in Buea, the flood from Mount Cameroon took away all belongings of people in my neighborhood and killed a secondary school student who was playing football with his friends.”
Climate change is killing communities.
Cecilia Nabwirwa, a nurse in Nairobi, Kenya: “I remember my grand-son getting sick after eating vegetables grown along areas flooded by sewage. Since then I resolved to growing my own vegetables to ensure healthy eating.”
And yet, another man on social media, Robert, found this “ridiculous. As if my friend who sells fish at his fish stall comes as an expert on water quality.”
I wondered: why such brutal responses?
Well, unlike scientists or global agencies, we cannot be dismissed as “experts from on-high”.
What we know, we know because we are here every day.
We are part of the community.
And we know that climate change is a threat to the health of the communities we serve.
We are already having to manage the impacts of climate change on health.
We are doing the best that we can.
But we need your support.
The global community is investing in building a new scientific field around climate and health.
Massive investments are also being made in policy.
Are we making a commensurate investment in people and communities?
That should mean investing in health workers.
What will happen if this investment is neglected?
What if big global donors say: “it’s important, but it’s not part of our strategy?”
Well, in 5, 10, or 15 years, we will certainly have much improved science and, hopefully, policy.
Yet, some communities might reject better science and policy.
Will the global community then wonder: “Why don’t they know what’s good for them?”
I am an immunization worker. For over 15 years, I have worked for my country’s ministry of health.
Like my colleagues from all over the world, I know more than a little about what it takes to establish and maintain trust.
Trust in vaccination, trust in public health.
Trust that by standing together in the face of critical threats to our societies, we all stand to do better.
Local communities in the poorest countries are already bearing the brunt of climate change effects on health.
Local solutions are needed.
Health workers are trusted advisors to the communities we serve.
With every challenge, there is an opportunity.
On 28 July 2023, 4,700 health workers began learning from each other through the Geneva Learning Foundation’s platform, community, and network.
Thousands more are connecting with each other, because they choose to.
And because they want to take action.
It is our duty to support them.
In March 2024, we will hold the tenth Teach to Reach conference.
The last edition reached over 17,000 health workers from more than 80 countries.
This time, our focus will be on climate and health.
We invite global partners to join, to listen and to learn.
We invite you to consider how you, your organization, your government might support action by health workers on the frontline.
Because we will rise.
As health workers, with or without your support, we will continue to stand up with courage, compassion and commitment, working to lift up our communities.
Our perseverance calls us all to press forward towards climate justice and health equity.
I wish to challenge us, as a global community, to rise together, so that the voices of those on the frontline of climate change will be at the next Conference of Parties.
By standing together, we all stand to do better.
Thank you.
https://redasadki.me/2023/12/11/climate-and-health-health-workers-trust/
#CharlotteMbuh #climate #climateCrisis #COP28 #Dubai #health #healthWorkforce #HRH
-
Geneva, Switzerland (1 December 2023) – The Geneva Learning Foundation has published a new report titled “On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report.” The report shares first-hand experiences from over 1,200 health workers in 68 countries who are first responders already battling climate consequences on health.
As climate change intensifies health threats, local health professionals may offer one of the most high-impact solutions.
Charlotte Mbuh of The Geneva Learning Foundation, said: “Local health workers are trusted advisers to communities. They are first to observe health consequences of climate change, before the global community is able to respond. They can also be first to respond to limit damage to health.”
“Health workers are already taking action with communities to mitigate and respond to the health effects of climate change, often with little or no recognition,” said Reda Sadki, President of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF). “If we want to build and maintain trust in climate science, policy, and action, we need to invest in the workforce, as they are the ones that communities rely on to make sense of what is changing.”
The report vividly illustrates the profound impacts climate change is already having on health, as shared by health workers themselves.
The wide-ranging health consequences directly observed by health workers include malnutrition due to crop failures, increasing incidence of infectious diseases, widespread mental health impacts, and reduced access to health services. Here are three examples.
- Bie Lilian Mbando, a health worker in Cameroon: “Where I live in Buea, the flood from Mount Cameroon took away all belongings of people in my neighbourhood and killed a secondary school student who was playing football with his friends.”
- Cecilia Nabwirwa, a nurse in Nairobi, Kenya: “I remember my grand-child getting sick after eating vegetables grown along sewage areas. Since then I resolved to growing my own vegetables to ensure healthy eating.”
- Alhassan Kenneth Mohammed, health facility worker in Ghana: “During the rainy season, it is very difficult for people to seek care for their health needs. They wait for the condition to get worse before coming to the facility.”
Surprising insights from these experiences include:
- Climate change worsens menstrual hygiene: Scarce water access brought by droughts can severely affect women’s ability to maintain proper menstrual hygiene. “Women and girls have challenges during menstruation as there is limited water,” noted one community health worker.
- Respiratory disease spikes with prolonged dust storms: Multiple health workers traced a rise in chronic coughs and other respiratory illness directly back to longer dry seasons and dust storms in areas turned to desert by climate shifts.
- Crop failure drives up alcohol abuse among men: In farming regions struggling with drought, women health practitioners connected livelihood loss to a stark rise in substance abuse, specifically alcoholism among men. “There has been job loss, low income, and depression. Also, men became alcoholics, which is now a national menace,” described one district-level worker.
Reda Sadki explains: “The experiences shared provide vivid illustrations of the human impacts of climate change. By giving a voice to health workers on the front lines, the report highlights the urgent need to support local action with communities to build resilience. This report is only a first step that needs to lead to action.”
Beyond the report, an opportunity to scale locally-led action using innovative approaches
As John Wabwire Shikuku, a community health worker from Port Victoria Sun County Hospital in Kenya, explains: “What gives me hope and keeps me going in my work is witnessing the growing awareness and mobilization of young people to address climate change, the development of sustainable solutions, and the potential for global collaboration to safeguard their future.”
We need new approaches to supporting climate and health action. We need to go directly to those on climate change’s frontlines – connecting local health workers globally not just to share struggles but lead action.
- Rather than siloed programs, we need radically participatory solutions that distill and share hyperlocal innovations across massive peer groups in real-time.
- Through new approaches, we can rapidly distill hyperlocal insights and multiplier solutions no top-down program matches.
The Geneva Learning Foundation’s proven peer learning model provides one such solution to connect and amplify local action across boundaries, offering those on the frontline tailored support and capabilities to lead context-specific solutions.
How to access the report
The report “On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report” is available here: https://www.learning.foundation/cop28. An abridged Summary report and an At a glance executive summary are also available, together with a compendium of 50 health worker experiences.
What happens next?
- Register here to receive email updates from The Geneva Learning Foundation about climate and health.
- During COP28, health workers are answering this question: “If you could ask the leaders at COP28 to do one thing right now to keep your community healthy, what would it be?”. You can find their responses on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, and Instagram.
Media contacts
Reda Sadki (Switzerland)
[email protected]: +41 22 575 4110Charlotte Mbuh (Cameroon)
[email protected]
Phone: +237 97355945About The Geneva Learning Foundation
Learn more about The Geneva Learning Foundation: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7316466
Created by a group of learning innovators and scientists with the mission to discover new ways to lead change, TGLF’s team combines over 70 years of experience with both country-based (field) work and country, region, and global partners.
- Our small, fully remote agile team already supports over 60,000 health practitioners leading change in 137 countries.
- We reach the front lines: 21% face armed conflict; 25% work with refugees or internally-displaced populations; 62% work in remote rural areas; 47% with the urban poor; 36% support the needs of nomadic/migrant populations.
TGLF’s unique package:
- Helps local actors take action with communities to tackle local challenges, and
- provides the tools to build a global network, platform, and community of health workers that can scale up local impact for global health.
In 2019, research showed that TGLF’s approach can accelerate locally-led implementation of innovative strategies by 7X, and works especially well in fragile contexts.
-
The ethics of recruiting international health-care workers: Canada’s gains could mean another country’s pain
#Canada #HealthCrisis #HealthWorkforce #Immigration #Doctors #Nurses #Recruitment #WHO #DoctorShortage #HealthWorkers #LongWaits #ER #HealthCare
https://the-14.com/the-ethics-of-recruiting-international-health-care-workers-canadas-gains-could-mean-another-countrys-pain/ -
RT @EUREGHA: Some highlights from the #EU4Health consultation @EU_Health.
🩺#healthworkforce,
💻#digitalskills
🫴#patientsempowerement
😷#longcovid
🚀#digitalisation and #AI
🛡️cancer prevention and #diagnosis@BeWellProjectEU @EU_Health #Regions4Health https://t.co/LX4r4Gic5L
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/EU_Health/status/1667076849745244160
-
Thousands of #NHS staff with #LongCovid risk losing pay due to change in sickness policy
Government accused of failing to support #HealthWorkforce who worked during the pandemic.
Between 5000 and 10000 #NHSworkers could be off sick with long #Covid.
-
As we embark on the journey towards a true 🇪🇺 #HealthUnion, it is essential to recognise the importance of the #HealthWorkforce by placing their #MentalHealth first. What bold actions are needed to make progress possible?
#EHFG2022 session organised by Young Forum Gastein explored how proper European-level action & local supporting mechanisms can be enforced towards a healthier HWF, demonstrating solidarity as a core principle of a true Health Union. Follow the discussion here: bit.ly/3s69IEG