Targeting Health Workforce Inequity in the Philippines: Analysis of Outcomes of Admission Policies of a Health Professions School

Abstract

Background and Rationale: Human resources are critical to building equitable health systems. The emphasis on the role of health workers highlights the role of public health professions schools in attaining development goals. But how do we measure inequity in health workforce distribution? And how are public health professions training institutions addressing health workforce disparities?

Objectives: The study aimed to arrive at measures of health workforce inequity in the Philippines and assess the outcomes of the admission policies of the University of the Philippines Manila-School of Health Sciences (UPMSHS) to address inequities in health workforce distribution.

Methodology: Health workforce metrics were generated using the Department of Health (DOH) National
Database of Selected Human Resources for Health and the 2010 population census data from the National Statistics Office (NSO). The Gini coefficient was utilized to come up with an index of inequality in health workforce distribution. Student data were taken from the UPM-SHS graduate tracking database.

Results: Data revealed the usefulness of utilizing an index of inequality to measure disparities in health workforce distribution. It shed light on the outcome measures of a health professions school like UPM-SHS and its contribution to addressing these inequalities.

Conclusion: Given this analysis of UPM-SHS in terms of its mandate to produce a broad range of health workforce that will address the needs of marginalized communities in the Philippines, there is a need to develop better measures of inequality to shed light on its contribution to building equitable health systems.