Improving capacities of nurses through graduate education

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