Strengthening Human Resources for Health

This course has been designed to provide those working in the health sector with tools and skills to understand, assess and formulate strategies to improve human resources for health. Individuals and country teams will learn from expert faculty as well as peers from other nations. During the course, all participants will create their draft country or organization strategic plan for human resources and crisis management.

Health officials in all countries need to recruit and retain skilled health workers at all levels and strengthen educational and management systems. This course will use a financial lens to achieve these goals while incorporating tools and skills to help create innovative strategies applicable to the public and private sectors.

• Learn how to effectively assess the human resource situation in your country/area;
• Examine the financing, education and labor market for effective human resource strategies;
• Learn tools to develop human resources policies;
• Apply human resource strategies to other system topics;
• Create own draft country-based Strategic Plan for Human Resources.

The curriculum of the course includes the following:

• Financing Assessment for Human Resources
• Strategic Planning and Human Resources
• Labor Market Approach
• Leadership and Institutional Change
• Assessment of Impact
• Evaluation of Cost Effectiveness
• Application of Politics

This interactive course offers a blend of theory and practice geared to an audience focused on implementation.  Included throughout the course are lectures, group work, case studies, problem sets, and preparation of group and individual case presentations. Facilitated discussion among participants is expected throughout the course. Participants are encouraged to have on hand their own country material and resources on health systems related to human resources development and management. 

This five-day in-person course is designed for individuals working in either the public or private sectors who are managing and/or developing strategies and policies for human resources development.  We are seeking experienced participants working in the health sector. Applicants from both government and non-governmental organizations will benefit from this course. 

Additionally, we encourage participation by teams of participants who can work together in the course to develop draft strategic plans for their organizations or countries. 

Dr. Diana Bowser serves as course director for all training programs within the International Health Systems Program of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also is the Associate Dean for Research and Integrated Science at the Connell School of Nursing. Bowser has 20 years of experience in health system analysis related to health economics, health policy, and using econometric methods and costing techniques to evaluate health system changes in Latin America, Africa, and the United States. She is especially interested in health system issues and research related to health financing, cost impacts on efficiency and effectiveness, catastrophic health payments, evaluation, income inequality, quality improvement, workforce, decentralization, and resource allocation in the health sector, and health and economic growth. She has worked at both the global and federal level on several research projects focusing on specific populations such as women and children and migrants and topics related to behavioral health and substance use. She has provided technical assistance and conducted research with grants and funding from USAID, DFID, WHO, the Global Fund, Save the Children, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IADB and the World Bank. She has worked closely with the following governments on these policy issues: Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia, Swaziland, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, Chile, Belize, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Ukraine, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Haiti, Egypt, Oman and Kuwait. Dr. Bowser earned her BA from Harvard College, her MPH from Yale School of Public Health and her Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) in health economics from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is fluent in Spanish and has lived and worked in Latin America.

Dr. Kevin Croke is an assistant professor of global health in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and director of the International Health Systems Program. He is also assistant editor for health policy at Social Science and Medicine and a faculty affiliate of the HKS Center for International Development and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. His research focuses on the politics of health and health systems, and on evaluation of large-scale health programs and policies. He has worked on health system research and policy in multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe, and his research has been published in leading journals of political science, global health, and development economics. He received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.