Strengthening Health Workforce Well-Being: Lessons for research from the COVID-19 Pandemic

SDG3 associates health workforceWorkforce well-beingWell-being with a set of system levelSystem level indicators, from financing to trainingTraining and developmentDevelopment. This chapter addresses research audiences by examining, and developing lessons on the basis of, healthHealth workforceWorkforce experiences of well-beingWell-being and mental healthMental health during theCoronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) COVID-19 pandemicPandemic. It does so using data derived from a national qualitativeQualitative study of health systemHealth system responses to COVID-19 in ColombiaColombia. The wider research study included 118 interviewsInterviews with health systemHealth system leaders in 2020 and a follow set of six focus groups in late 2021 and early 2022. The data were analyzed thematically using deductiveDeductive and inductiveInductive approaches. Deductively, we utilized SGD3´s definition of system-level indicators of workforceWorkforce well-being, namely workforceWorkforce financing, recruitmentRecruitment, developmentDevelopment, trainingTraining, and retentionRetention. Inductively, we mapped interviewees´ perspectives on the pandemicPandemic´s effects, interventionsIntervention, and recommendationsRecommendations that coincided with—and went beyond—the perspective on well-beingWell-being outlined in SDG3. The chapter concludes that the SDG3 definition needs to be enriched with acknowledgement of occupational heterogeneityOccupational heterogeneity; well-being as the product of interplay between system levelsSystem level; the benefits of stakeholder collaboration in facing common challenges; and research and policy implementation considerations.