The “Policy on the Health Workforce 2030: Strengthening Human Resources for Health to Achieve Resilient Health Systems”, approved by PAHO Member States in September 2023, highlights the need to enhance workforce capacity-building to address population health priorities and support public health emergency preparedness and response. Member States are expected to commit to strengthening the health workforce through education, research, and other investments.
Nursing education is an essential aspect of strengthening the capacity of the nursing workforce and advancing universal health and primary health care in the Region of the Americas. Transformative, competency-based, collaborative education programs are fundamental to qualify nurses to contribute to interprofessional teams within complex health systems, promote health and disease prevention, and address the social determinants of health.
The Region of the Americas has 2,540 schools of nursing. There are 63 doctoral training programs in Latin America and the Caribbean but 65% of which are in just one country, Brazil. The number of nurses with graduate education: master and doctoral level is very low in this Region. The lack of prepared nurses with master and doctoral level impacts the quality of the education, the development of nursing research and science and the future of nursing. It also impacts the presence of nurses in leadership positions in the governments, academic settings or organizations and services.
Nursing
To discuss the opportunities, challenges, and strategies as well as the perspectives to advance the capacities of nurses through graduate education particularly in the Latin America and Caribbean countries.
- Opportunities, strategies, and challenges for graduate training in Nursing in Latin America and the Caribbean – Doctoral Training Survey
- Impact of graduate training on strengthening the skills of nurses in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Silvia Cassiani, Advisor on Nursing and Health Technicians, PAHO/WHO
- Benjamin Puertas, Chief of the Human Resources for Health Unit, PAHO/WHO
- Antonia Villarruel and Margo Brooks Carthon, PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Leadership, School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, USA
- Nelcy Martínez Trujillo, Escuela Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuba
- María Liliana Calderón Macias, Universidad Estatal del Sur de Manabí, Ecuador
- Dawn A. Munroe, PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Development in the Caribbean, The University of the West Indies School of Nursing, Jamaica