Authors:

Abstract

Although it is important that there be enough physicians to ensure the health of the population, it is equally important to avoid an oversupply due to resource waste and inefficiencies. However, physicians are not evenly distributed throughout the world; richer and more developed countries may have excess numbers while poorer countries in the developing world may face severe shortages. As economies grow, health care spending will also rise, and with it, the need for more physicians. Previous work has shown that the best single predictor in the growth of health care spending, and subsequently physician supply, is the rate of growth in the economy. Employing this key relationship, and using historical World Bank data on GNP and physicians per capita from 1980 to 2001, we forecast the future demand for physicians for each region of the world, controlling for time and country effects. By 2015, developing countries in East Asia/Pacific, Europe/Central Asia, and Middle East/North Africa are likely to experience the greatest shortfalls of doctors-about 2 million physicians total. In contrast, Latin American/Caribbean nations and high-income OECD countries may expect a surplus of over 300,000 and 800,000 physicians, respectively. If economies continue to grow as they have been over the last ten years, we can expect a global shortage of 715,000 physicians in 2015. Because it can take about 10 years to train one physician, these projections have important implications for workforce policies today.

This abstract was accepted for Unite for Site's 4th Annual International Health Conference at Stanford, Apr 14-15, 2007.

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