Nurses and midwives, total in high-income countries in 2018 — 12,848,552 people. Since 2018, the indicator has risen by 0%.
2018–2018 · people
How the value compares with the world and the groups this territory belongs to: High-income countries
| Year | people | Change | Change, % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 12.85M | — | — |
The number of nursing and midwifery personnel, from WHO. This category is almost always the largest in a health system — worldwide there are on average about three times as many nurses as physicians, and in countries with developed primary care the gap is wider still.
Important: The ratio of nurses to physicians speaks of the structure of a system: a low value usually means that physicians are doing the work of nursing care, and that is a sign of a staffing shortage rather than of an abundance of doctors.
Source: Global Health Observatory (WHO), license CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.