Global, regional, and national impact of epidemic disasters on health workforce equality between 1990 and 2019: An ecological and modeling study

This paper examines the global, regional, and national impact of epidemic disasters on health workforce equality between 1990 and 2019. Using 30 years of ecological data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) and human resources for health (HRH) density statistics from the Global Burden of Disease study, the authors analysed 1,185 epidemic events across 194 countries and territories. 

The study found that epidemics were associated with decreases in the density of all health workers and nearly all cadre-specific HRHs. Assuming the observed associations were causal, the authors estimated that approximately 17,549 health workers, or 2.57 per 10,000 HRHs, were lost annually due to epidemics.