New Resource Spotlight: Discrete Choice Experiment User Guide

How can policy-makers formulate appropriate responses to address shortages of health workers in remote and rural areas? A new publication produced through close collaboration among the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, and CapacityPlus proposes an innovative methodology—the discrete choice experiment (DCE)—for measuring the strength of health workers’ preferences related to different job characteristics that can influence their decision to accept and remain in rural posts.

User Guide with Case Studies: How to Conduct a Discrete Choice Experiment for Health Workforce Recruitment and Retention in Remote and Rural Areas offers step-by-step advice on the application of the DCE to identify policy interventions appropriate to a particular country to tackle health workforce shortages in underserved areas. The guide includes case studies from Tanzania and Uganda that demonstrate the application of the DCE in real-life contexts.

The Uganda case study documents a DCE conducted by the Uganda Ministry of Health, with assistance from CapacityPlus, which analyzed data from both students in health worker training programs (to inform policies related to attraction to rural posts) and in-service health workers (to inform policies related to retention)...