The Economics of Health Professional Education and Careers: Insights from a Literature Review

The formation of health professionals is critical for the health system to function and to achieve its universal health coverage (UHC) goals. This is well recognized by the majority of governments that plan to ensure enough training places and aim to regulate in order to ensure quality. But the importance of market forces is often overlooked, resulting in interventions and regulations that often fail to achieve their intended effects. The Economics of Health Professional Education and Careers aims to inform the design of health professionals’ education policies to better manage health labor market forces toward UHC. It documents what is known about the influence of market forces on the health-professional formation process.
The contexts of the market for health professional training have been subject to important changes in recent decades, in particular: the growing extent of employment of mid-level cadres of health professionals; changes in technology and the associated growth of high-skilled occupations; the increasing interconnectedness of national health systems through globalization, with its implications for international health professional mobility; and the greater complexity of the public–private mix in employment options.
There is a need to ensure that market forces align with the intentions of planning and regulation and the needs of UHC goals. This study provides recommendations to support the design of policies that help to achieve these goals.