Abstract
BackgroundHealth worker shortage in rural areas is one of the biggest problems of the health sector in Ghana and many developing countries. This may be due to fewer incentives and support systems available to attract and retain health workers at the rural level. This study explored the willingness of community health officers (CHOs) to accept and hold rural and community job postings in Ghana.MethodsA discrete choice experiment was used to estimate the motivation and incentive preferences of CHOs in Ghana. All CHOs working in three Health and Demographic Surveillance System sites in Ghana, 200 in total, were interviewed between December 2012 and January 2013. Respondents were asked to choose from choice sets of job preferences. Four mixed logit models were used for the estimation. The first model considered (a) only the main effect. The other models included interaction terms for (b) gender, (c) number of children under 5 in the household, and (d) years worked at the same community. Moreover, a choice probability simulation was performed.ResultsMixed logit analyses of the data project a shorter time frame before study leave as the most important motivation for most CHOs (β 2.03; 95 % CI 1.69 to 2.36). This is also confirmed by the largest simulated choice probability (29.1 %). The interaction effect of the number of children was significant for education allowance for children (β 0.58; 95 % CI 0.24 to 0.93), salary increase (β 0.35; 95 % CI 0.03 to 0.67), and housing provision (β 0.16; 95 % CI −0.02 to 0.60). Male CHOs had a high affinity for early opportunity to go on study leave (β 0.78; 95 % CI −0.06 to 1.62). CHOs who had worked at the same place for a long time greatly valued salary increase (β 0.28; 95 % CI 0.09 to 0.47).ConclusionsTo reduce health worker shortage in rural settings, policymakers could provide “needs-specific” motivational packages. They should include career development opportunities such as shorter period of work before study leave and financial policy in the form of salary increase to recruit and retain them.
Highlights
Health worker shortage in rural areas is one of the biggest problems of the health sector in Ghana and many developing countries
The World Health Organization (WHO) (2006) reported that health worker retention is an important factor in the delivery and quality of health services [2]
WHO’s (2010) global policy recommendations on rural retention suggest that countries pursue interventions on four categories: education, regulation, financial incentives, and personal and professional mechanisms [6]
Summary
Health worker shortage in rural areas is one of the biggest problems of the health sector in Ghana and many developing countries. This may be due to fewer incentives and support systems available to attract and retain health workers at the rural level. A DCE can be used as an attribute-based measure of benefits to describe healthcare interventions, services, or policies according their attributes [10, 11] This attribute-based measure of benefits helps policymakers develop a national strategy to tackle health worker shortage in rural areas [7, 12]
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