Health human resources (“HHR”) — also known as “human resources for health” (“HRH”) or “health workforce” — is defined as “all people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance health”, according to the World Health Organization's World Health Report 2006. Human resources for health are identified as one of the core building blocks of a health system. They include physicians, nurses, midwives, dentists, allied health professions, community health workers, social health workers and other health care providers, as well as health management and support personnel – those who may not deliver services directly but are essential to effective health system functioning, including health services managers, medical records and health information technicians, health economists, health supply chain managers, medical secretaries, and others.
The field of health human resources deals with issues such as planning, development, performance, management, retention, information, and research on human resources for the health care sector. In recent years, raising awareness of the critical role of HRH in strengthening health system performance and improving population health outcomes has placed the health workforce high on the global health agenda.
Read more about Health Human Resources: Global Situation, Health Workforce Research, Health Workforce Policy and Planning
Famous quotes containing the words health, human and/or resources:
“At last I feel the equal of my parents. Knowing you are going to have a child is like extending yourself in the world, setting up a tent and saying “Here I am, I am important.” Now that I’m going to have a child it’s like the balance is even. My hand is as rich as theirs, maybe for the first time. I am no longer just a child.”
—Anonymous Father. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“I always put these pert jackanapeses out of countenance by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries; and by saying Well, and so?—as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)