Deployment

Widening Disparity in the Geographic Distribution of Pediatricians in Japan

The purpose of this study was to investigate recent changes in the geographic distribution of pediatricians and the factors underlying this change. [from abstract]

For More Than Love or Money: Attitudes of Student and In-Service Health Workers Towards Rural Service in India

In India, there is a constant tug of war in national policy on “Which health worker is needed in rural areas?” and “Who can, realistically, be got there?” In this article, we try to inform this debate by juxtaposing perspectives of three cadres involved in primary care in India—allopathic, ayurvedic and nursing—on rural service. We also identify key incentives for improved rural retention of these cadres. [adapted from abstract]

Using Incentives to Attract Nurses to Remote Areas of Tanzania: A Contingent Valuation Study

This article analyses (1) how financial incentives (salary top-ups) and non-financial incentives (housing and education) affect nurses’ willingness to work in remote areas of Tanzania and (2) how the magnitude of the incentives needed to attract health workers varies with the nurses’ geographic origin and their intrinsic motivation. [from abstract]

Recruitment and Retention of Rural Nursing Students: a Retrospective Study

The purpose of this study was to compare rural and urban nursing students in relation to application, admission, and retention/graduation trends at a metropolitan state university in the Pacific Northwest area of the USA. [from abstract]

Impact of Japan's 2004 Postgraduate Training Program on Intra-Prefectural Distribution of Pediatricians in Japan

This study examined the trends in the geographic distribution of pediatricians as well as all physicians from 1996 to 2010 to identify the impact of the launch of a new training program for new medical graduates. [from abstract]

Attitudes toward Working in Rural Areas of Thai Medical, Dental and Pharmacy New Graduates in 2012: A Cross-Sectional Survey

This study aimed to explore the current attitudes of new medical, dental and pharmacy graduates as well as determine the linkage between their characteristics and the preference for working in rural areas. [from abstract]

National Study on Nurses' Retention in Healthcare Facilities in Underserved Areas in Lebanon

This study investigates the characteristic and the factors associated with the retention of nurses working in rural areas in Lebanon. [from abstract]

Thailand Special Recruitment Track of Medical Students: A Series of Annual Cross-Sectional Surveys on the New Graduates between 2010 and 2012

This study compared the rural attitudes, intention to fulfill mandatory rural service and competencies between medical graduates’ from two modes of admission, normal and special tracks in order to evaluate Thailand’s comprehensive policies for rural retention of medical doctor and other health professional, including education strategy and mandatory service. [adapted from abstract]

Interventions for Supporting Nurse Retention in Rural and Remote Areas: An Umbrella Review

This umbrella review aims to synthesize the current evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to promote nurse retention in rural or remote areas, and to present a taxonomy of potential strategies to improve nurse retention in those regions. [from abstract]

Experiences of Non-Resident Nurses in Australia's Remote Northern Territory

The purpose of this research was to assess the extent to which the use of non-resident labor in the health sector, specifically non-resident nurses, might address the well-known barriers to recruitment and retention of remote health professionals [from author]

Dental Education in the Rural Community: A Nigerian Experience

This report provides recommendations for initiating, sustaining and expanding rural dental education programs based on the experience of the University of Ibadan in Nigeria where dental students are prepared not only to provide skilled care to individual patients, but also to assume responsibility for the community as a whole. [adapted from abstract]

Women in the Rural Medical Academic Workforce

This study assessed the role of women as fractional full-time equivalent rural academics in the context of significant health workforce shortage and increasing academic demand and concluded that female doctors who are willing to take on part-time work are supporting the rural medical teaching workforce. [adapted from abstract]

Transforming Rural Health Systems through Clinical Academic Leadership: Lessons from South Africa

Rural health training programs for health professionals have been slow to develop in low- and middle-income countries, and the impact of clinical leadership is under-researched in such settings. This report lists recommendations focused on supporting local rural clinical academic leaders; training health professionals for leadership roles in rural settings; and advancing the clinical academic leadership agenda through advocacy and research. [adapted from abstract]

What Interventions Do Rural Doctors Think Will Increase Recruitment in Rural Areas: A Survey of 2778 Health Workers in Beijing

Strategies have been developed by the Chinese government to improve the recruitment of rural doctors. However, the inequitable distribution of doctors has not improved significantly. The objective of this study was to explore the reasons for the poor recruitment and to propose possible strategies to improve the situation. [adapted from abstract]

Getting Doctors into the Bush: General Practitioners' Preferences for Rural Location

The aim of this study is to examine the preferences of general practitioners (GPs) for rural location using a discrete choice experiment to estimate the probabilities of moving to a rural area, and the size of financial incentives GPs would require to move there. [adapted from abstract]

Adherence to Management Guidelines for Growth Faltering and Anaemia in Remote Dwelling Australian Aboriginal Infants and Barriers to Health Service Delivery

This study describes the adherence to infant guidelines for anaemia and growth faltering by remote health staff and barriers to effective service delivery in remote settings. [from abstract]

How to Recruit and Retain Health Workers in Rural and Remote Areas in Developing Countries

This paper aims to outline the magnitude of unequal health workforce distribution in the developing countries; summarize the evidence on the factors that contribute to these imbalances; present a systematic set of policy interventions that are being implemented to address the problem of recruitment and retention of health workers in rural and remote regions of developing countries; and introduce the Discrete Choice Experiment to elicit health workers’ preferences and factors likely to increase uptake of a rural or remote job. [adapted from abstract]

Mountain Midwives of Vietnam

The infant and maternal mortality rates in the mountainous regions of northern Vietnam are 10 times higher than the national average. This 25 minute film tells the story of a Hmong ethnic minority midwife who has been trained to provide maternal care to her community in the isolated Chi Ca commune. [from publisher]

Why Would I Go There? Motivating Workers to Take and Keep Jobs in Rural Areas

Given the complexity of the social, professional and economic factors that influence motivation, this article addresses how institutions make rural job postings more attractive and how they can identify what kinds of incentive packages can attract and motivate young, bright graduates to serve the areas of their country that are most in need. [adapted from author]

Fly-in Fly-out Nursing: Is It for Us? New Graduate Nurses' Perspectives

Fly-in/Fly-out models of health care for rural-remote communities are currently the focus of evaluation and debate, as the health inequalities of rural and remote communities continue to challenge both health service providers and healthcare consumers. This article presents the thoughts and perceptions of new graduate nurses as they explore future career pathways in rural-remote nursing. [from abstract]

Differences in Preferences for Rural Job Postings between Nursing Students and Practicing Nurses: Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment in Lao People's Democratic Republic

A discrete choice experiment was conducted to investigate preferences for job characteristics among nursing students and practicing nurses to determine how these groups vary in their respective preferences and to understand whether differing policies may be appropriate for each group. [from abstract]

Factors that Influence Midwifery Students in Ghana When Deciding Where to Practice: A Discrete Choice Experiment

This quantitative research study used a computerized structured survey containing a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to quantify the importance of different incentives and policies to encourage service to deprived, rural and remote areas by upper-year midwifery students following graduation. [from abstract]

Longitudinal Study of Rural Health Workforce in Five Countries in China: Research Design and Baseline Description

The authors conducted a longitudinal study to explore the current situation and track the future evolution of the rural healthcare workforce, specifically village doctors, in China. [adapted from abstract]

Primary Health Care and General Practice Attachment: Establishing an Undergraduate Teaching Network in Rural Greek Health Centers

This report describes the steps taken by a Greek medical school to establish and maintain a rural primary health care teaching network in order to implement community oriented primary health care and general practice for undergraduate medical education. [adapted from abstract]

Advanced Rural Skills Training: Are Recently Qualified GPs Using Their Procedural Skills?

This study aimed to: describe where general practitioners (GPs) practice in the 5 years after advanced rural skills training; describe the proportion of doctors using their advanced skills; measure doctors’ ratings of the quality of support and how critical the year directly following training is in future career choices; and measure the association between support and use of advanced skills. [from abstract]

Immersing Undergraduates into an Interprofessional Longitudinal Rural Placement

This article evaluates an Australian program that placed students from different health programs together, in a rural environment, for one or two semesters of the academic year to promote interprofessional learning. [adapted from abstract]

Challenges of Working in Underserved Areas: A Qualitative Exploratory Study of Views of Policy Makers and Professionals

This study aimed to elucidate the views of staff nurses working in underserved areas, directors of health facilities in underserved areas and key informants from the policy and education arena on issues of staffing and retention of nurses in underserved areas of Jordan. [from abstract]

Additional Years of Australian Rural Clinical School Undergraduate Training Is Associated with Rural Practice

The objective of this study was to understand the influence of the number of years spent at an Australian rural clinical school on graduates’ current, preferred current and intended location for rural workforce practice. [from abstract]

Career Choices and What Influences Nepali Medical Students and Young Doctors: A Cross-Sectional Study

The aim of this study was to understand medical career choices and the factors that influence medical students’ and young doctors’ career choices in Nepal and to understand what would encourage them to work in rural areas as generalists. [from abstract]

Recruitment and Retention of Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists in Rural Regions: A Meta-Synthesis

is study aims to broaden the understanding of factors associated with recruitment and retention of occupational therapists and physiotherapists in rural regions, through a synthesis of evidence from qualitative studies found in the literature. [from abstract]