Webinar: Health workforce heterogeneity in LMICs - conceptual and practical considerations

The health workforce in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is deeply heterogeneous, manifesting varying levels of official legitimacy and informality of practice, as well as diverse, overlapping systems of knowledge and variably specialised cadres of providers. Coordinating this mixed workforce calls for governance approaches responsive to the opportunities and challenges presented by this diversity. The panellists will discuss conceptual issues and practical considerations around managing health workforce heterogeneity in LMICs.

Speakers

Kabir Sheikh
Professor of Global Health Systems and Policy, UCL

Professor Sheikh is a health policy and systems researcher and educator whose work focuses on generating insights and solutions for health systems challenges in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Prior to joining UCL (2023-), he was Policy Advisor at the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, World Health Organization (2018-2023), where he led policy, science, and country engagement with a footprint in 40 countries. Before that, he was Director for Research and Policy at the Public Health Foundation of India (2008-2017) and Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne. 

He has served successive terms as elected Board Chair (2016-18) and Vice Chair (2014-16) of Health Systems Global, and served in different advisory roles to WHO, the MRC UK, the DHSC UK, the European Commission, UNICEF, the Wellcome Trust, USAID, FCDO, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and several country governments. He has written more than 100 papers, and edited three books on health systems and policy. He holds honorary professorships at LSHTM, PHFI, the University of Melbourne, and BRAC University, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Health Policy and Planning, Social Science and Medicine, and BMJ Global Health. Prof Sheikh is co-chair of NIHR’s Global Health Policy and Systems Research committee. 

Vivian Kwang-wen Lin
Executive Associate Dean at the LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong

Professor Vivian Lin joined the LKS Faculty of Medicine as Executive Associate Dean in March 2019. She is concurrently Professor of Public Health Practice. She has more than 40 years of experience in public health, with a variety of leading roles in policy and programme development, health services planning, research and teaching, and senior administration in complex organisations.

Vivian was Chair of Public Health from 2000-2013 at La Trobe University in Melbourne before serving the WHO as Director of Health Systems in the Western Pacific Regional Office for 2013-2018, where she led on the global priorities of universal health coverage and sustainable development goals, cross-cutting priority issues of antimicrobial resistance, ageing, and gender-based violence, and on health system development issues including health financing, health law and ethics, health workforce, traditional medicines, service delivery, and health information systems. She continues to be involved with WHO as member of the Technical Advisory Group on Universal Health Coverage in the Western Pacific Region as well as supporting several global projects, including urban governance for health and wellbeing.

Vivian has also worked at senior executive level in health policy in several Australian jurisdictions, including as Executive Officer of the National Public Health Partnership. She has also consulted widely for the World Bank, UK Department for International Development, Australian Agency for International Development, World Health Organization, and various Australian governments at state and federal levels. In these roles, she has developed the first Australian health sector aid strategy for China, the WHO framework for people-centred health care for the Western Pacific Region, and the ASEAN Healthy Lifestyle Strategy. She was commissioned to undertake major studies of indicators used globally for gender equity and health, on risks and regulatory requirements for naturopathy, and evaluation of health promotion leadership programme.

Vivian is the author of several leading textbooks in Australia on health policy and planning, as well as on China. She has served on multiple editorial boards for leading journals, including as health policy editor for Social Science and Medicine. More recently, she was a member of the International Panel on Social Progress and chaired its health cross-cutting group. She has served on the medicine and public health panel for the New Zealand Tertiary Commission’s Performance-based Research Funding exercise on 5 occasions between 2003 and 2018. She is presently involved on two Lancet Commissions – on gender and global health and on COVID-19.

Vivian earned her BA from Yale University and MPH and DrPH from UC Berkeley. She was a recipient of the Drotman Award by the American Public Health Association in 1982 which recognizes promising young public health professional who challenge traditional public health policy.

Meike Schleiff
Scientist at Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research

Meike is a researcher and educator with extensive experience working on community health and community engagement, primary health care, curriculum development and mentorship models, and health equity. She brings learning, implementation and systems perspectives to bear on her work. She is working on research agenda setting, PHC and universal health coverage portfolios, and supporting the Alliance’s online course development and implementation.

She holds a master’s and a doctoral degree in health systems from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she has also served as a faculty member for five years leading a portfolio of implementation research, programme evaluation and institutional strengthening projects.

Meike is invested in working closely with current and new partners through the Alliance to find solutions to and deliver high-quality evidence related to complex health systems challenges.

Dr Harvy Liwanag
Alliance for Improving Health Outcomes, Philippines

Dr Harvy Joy Liwanag is a global health specialist with an emphasis on research questions relevant to health systems strengthening in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. His research is focused on interrogating concepts and analysing mechanisms in health systems to promote better understanding that can influence changes in policy and practice. His research has explored the concept and practice of accountability, reflexivity, and participatory approaches in global health. His studies on the impact of decentralising the public health sector in the Philippines have been cited as a reference for understanding and optimising decentralisation in several LMICs. He has worked closely with both government and non-government organisations to support human resources for health planning at the national level and capacity strengthening for health policy and systems research at the organisational level. Harvy is originally from the Philippines and holds a dual degree in Doctor of Medicine, Master of Business Administration from the Ateneo de Manila University, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow of the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine in Bern, Switzerland, with adjunct appointments as a visiting researcher at the Nossal Institute for Global Health in Melbourne, Australia and as principal investigator for the Alliance for Improving Health Outcomes in the Philippines.

Samuel Lassa 
General Practitioner and Clinical Researcher 

Samuel Lassa is Honorary Lecturer at the University of Jos, Nigeria, and a General Practitioner and Principal Investigator Research at the Royal Primary Care Derbyshire. He is an experienced lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. Skilled in Epidemiology, Prevention, Reproductive Health, Health Promotion, and Data Collection. Strong education professional with an MPH and PhD focused on Health systems research from The University of Sheffield.

James Campbell
Director, Health Workforce, World Health Organization

Dr James Campbell is the Director of the Health Workforce Department at the World Health Organization. He oversees the development and implementation of global public goods, evidence and tools to inform national and international investments in the education, development and retention of the health and social sector workforce in pursuit of global health security, universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The department’s work includes the State of the World’s Nursing Report, WHO’s Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030, the report of the High-level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth and the subsequent adoption of the ILO, OECD, WHO action plan on Working for Health to implement the Commission’s recommendations. He coordinates the Global Health Workforce Network engaging member states and relevant partners in WHO’s work.

Prior to joining WHO and GHWA he spent eight years as the Founder and Director of a not-for-profit research institute. His publications include A Universal Truth: No Health Without a Workforce (2013), and the State of the World’s Midwifery reports (2011 and 2014). He is a Board member of the International Institute for Educational Planning.