Attracting and retaining health workers in rural and remote areas

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10 May 2011

KIT Development Policy and Practice has carried out a literature review of interventions worldwide to attract and retain health workers in rural and remote areas.

The report, Realist review and synthesis of retention studies for health workers in rural and remote areas, has contributed to the World Health Organization’s global policy recommendations for attracting and retaining health workers in rural and remote areas.

The report analyses why certain interventions were successful and others not, and identifies critical contextual factors that enabled or obstructed success. It also looks at which factors triggered health workers to work in rural areas. This allows policy-makers to select interventions that would best fit their particular context and judge whether interventions that were successful in other settings would work in their own environment.  

Realist inquiry
KIT used a new approach for this review called ‘realist inquiry’, which is slowly gaining more attention in health systems and social sciences research all over the world. KIT is at the forefront in using this method and is contributing to further developing this approach.

For more information, visit KIT’s online dossier: Realist Inquiry.