Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Absenteeism is a pervasive problem among health workers, especially in low- and middle-income countries like Kenya where absenteeism was as high as 53.8% in 2018 according to the World Bank Service Delivery Indicators Survey. When health workers are not at their posts, health care does not happen. Between 2016-2021, IntraHealth International implemented the USAID-funded Human Resources for Health (HRH) Kenya project in 30 of Kenya’s 47 counties. We used a quasi-experimental difference in difference approach to compare absenteeism in counties before and after HRH Kenya was active in 15 counties with Service Delivery Indicator Surveys conducted in 2012 and 2018. We then correlated changes in maturity of human resources, management, and development attributes including use of HRH data for decision-making in HRH Kenya counties with changes in absenteeism. Between 2018 and 2012, HRH Kenya counties saw absenteeism reduced by 12 percentage points (p<0.28) compared to counties not exposed to HRH Kenya and by 2 percentage points (p<0.71) compared to national level trends. Staff Rewards, Recognition and Sanctions maturity was correlated with reduced absenteeism (p<0.05). Performance Management, Gender Discrimination Reporting and Documentation, and HRH Data Quality all showed moderate but not statistically significant correlations with reduced absenteeism. Investments in human resources, management, and development including strengthening the use of data for decision-making have the potential to reduce growing absenteeism.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Finnegan et al. (2023) studied this question.