Health researchers (in full-time equivalent), as a proportion of all researchers

Published: January 2018

The number of researchers in the fields of health and medical sciences (‘health researchers’) is monitored, by country, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

These numbers are analysed below using the data for the most recent year since 2010. (Note: not all countries have reported data on this indicator.)

    See also

    Health researchers (in full-time equivalent) per million inhabitants, by WHO Region
    Health researchers (in full-time equivalent) per million inhabitants, by income group

    What you see | Data sources | Current version

     

    What you see

    The data visualization above compares the weighted average of full time equivalent (FTE) health researchers1 2 as a percentage of all researchers by WHO region (top chart, left) and by income group (top chart, right). The bottom chart provides the percentage by country (regional group averages are symbolized by the dashed vertical line in the bottom chart)

    Points to note:
    • The weighted averages are derived from the 60 Member States for which data are available. They need to be interpreted cautiously because of the number of missing observations.
    • The proportion of all researchers who are FTE health researchers varies from 19% (African region) to 9% (South-East Asia region).
    • Differences are smaller between income groups with the proportion of FTE health researchers as a percentage of all researchers in the low income group slightly higher (15%) than in the other income groups (13% each).
    • The top three countries with the highest proportion of all researchers who are FTE health researchers are Burkina Faso (46%), Gambia (41%) and Egypt (30%); they all exceeded their regional averages (bottom chart).

    To explore the data further:

    • Select a WHO region (top chart, left) and/or income group (top chart, right) to filter countries within that region and/or income group in the bottom chart: regional averages are symbolized by the dashed vertical line. ( note: the country bars in the bottom chart are colour coded according to WHO region).
    • Hover the cursor on a bar in a graphic to see more information (e.g. country, year, total FTE health researchers, health researchers as a % of all researchers, regional average) in a popup window.
    • Click "undo" or "reset" (near the bottom of the visualization) or click the same element again to undo a selection.

    For example:

    • Selecting only Eastern Mediterranean, then hovering the cursor on the country bar of interest (bottom chart), shows that Egypt and Qatar (30% and 24% respectively) both have a higher proportion of FTE health researchers as a percentage of all researchers than the regional average (18%).
    • Selecting Africa shows that of all researchers in Burkina Faso, 46% are FTE health researchers, compared to 19%; the average for the region.
    • After selecting a region, you can select an income group (in the top right chart) which will filter the countries belonging to this income group within this region. For example:
      -- selecting lower middle income countries within the Eastern Mediterranean region shows that Egypt (30%) is the only country (among three countries in that income group) exceeding the regional average (18%).
    • Selecting the low income group displays the relevant countries with available data, and shows that the selected countries are all from the African region.

    Data sources

    1The full-time equivalent (FTE) of R&D personnel is defined as the ratio of working hours actually spent on R&D during a specific reference period (usually a calendar year) divided by the total number of hours conventionally worked in the same period by an individual or by a group.

    2Medical and health sciences (for R&D data) include basic medicine; clinical medicine; health sciences; health biotechnology; and other medical sciences.