This article is part of a series on Towards a scaling-up of training and education for health workers, edited by Hugo Mercer.

Review

Equity-oriented toolkit for health technology assessment and knowledge translation: application to scaling up of training and education for health workers

Erin Ueffing¹ , Peter Tugwell¹ , Janet Hatcher Roberts² , Peter Walker³ , Nadia Hamel¹ and Vivian Welch¹

¹  Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

²  Canadian Society for International Health, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

³  Academy for Innovation in Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

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Human Resources for Health 2009, 7:67doi:10.1186/1478-4491-7-67

Published:	5 August 2009

Abstract

Human resources for health are in crisis worldwide, especially in economically disadvantaged areas and areas with high rates of HIV/AIDS in both health workers and patients. International organizations such as the Global Health Workforce Alliance have been established to address this crisis. A technical working group within the Global Health Workforce Alliance developed recommendations for scaling up education and training of health workers. The paper will illustrate how decision-makers can use evidence and tools from an equity-oriented toolkit to scale up training and education of health workers, following five recommendations of the technical working group. The Equity-Oriented Toolkit, developed by the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity, has four major steps: (1) burden of illness; (2) community effectiveness; (3) economic evaluation; and (4) knowledge translation/implementation. Relevant tools from each of these steps will be matched with the appropriate recommendation from the technical working group.