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How can public health organizations recruit diverse talent?

Project Summary

Policymakers struggle to find new ways to recruit healthcare workers causing significant staffing shortages. In this project, we examine how governments can more effectively attract nurses and nursing assistants from the broader European labor market. Together with the King Frederik Center for Public Leadership at Aarhus University at Aarhus University, the MoRe-Project (Megastudy on Recruitment) is collaborating with public health organizations and governmental collaborators in Denmark to test outreach interventions related to recruiting nurses and nursing assistants.

Why is this issue important?

The public healthcare sector in many countries faces a recruitment crisis. Globally, we face a shortage of approximately six million nurses with shortages particularly dire in rural areas, according to a 2020 report by the World Health Organization. As the pandemic has demonstrated, the lack of staff in healthcare organizations threatens public health and is among the most pressing policy problems facing the healthcare sector.

What are we doing?

In collaboration with researchers from Aarhus University and multiple Danish public health organizations and governmental collaborators, we are currently designing a “megastudy” that will test the efficacy of up to 20 different messages on the recruitment of nurses and nursing assistants to Denmark. The messages themselves will be co-designed with nurses and HR professionals, as well as behavioral science experts.

What comes next?

This project is currently in the design phase. An overview of the project can be found here. We expect the field experiment to begin in 2024.

Collaborator

  • King Frederik Center for Public Leadership at Aarhus University

Timeline

2022 - Present

Methods

  • Field experiment
  • Survey/survey experiment

Status

Ongoing

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