GLOBAL SNAPSHOT Physician Distribution and Density of Physicians per 1000 population - Worldwide 2021

The chart presents the most up-to-date data (2021) available for 49 of the world’s 195 countries, focusing on the total number of physicians and the number of physicians per 1000 population(1). The countries are categorized into four income groups based on World Bank classifications, which are updated annually on July 1st each year(2).

Only 25% of the countries present current data. This information is critical for decision-making for healthcare planning and policy development. Equally crucial, is for researchers to have comparable data to propose initiatives, to establish benchmarks and  for crafting holistic strategies to gauge and advance progress in healthcare systems globally.

Data sources: UnData https://data.un.org/

Visualization tools used: RAWGraphs https://www.rawgraphs.io/, MS PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel

Intended Audience: Academics and Researchers; Students and Educators; Healthcare Administrators and Policy Makers; Non-Governmental Organizations

The NNLM Data Visualization Challenge happens through work funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine, grant number U24LM013751

References:

1. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 10 Health Personnel. In: Statistical Yearbook. 66th issue (2023). New York: United Nations; 2023. (ST/ESA/STAT/SER.S/42). [Dataset available at UnData] https://data.un.org/_Docs/SYB/CSV/SYB66_154_202310_Health%20Personnel.csv

2 World Bank. World Bank Country and Lending Groups. World Bank Data Help Desk [Internet]. [cited 2024 Apr 5]. Available from: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups