How to Recruit and Retain Health Workers in Rural and Remote Areas in Developing Countries

This paper has a two-fold objective: i) to give the reader an overview of the magnitude of unequal health workforce distribution in developing countries, provide a summary of the evidence to date on the factors that contribute to these imbalances, and present a systematic set of policy interventions that are being implemented around the world to address the problem of recruitment and retention of health workers in rural and remote regions of the developing countries; and ii) to introduce the reader to the potential application of the DCE to elicit health workers’ preferences and determine the factors likely to increase their probability of taking up a rural or remote job.