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

Published: January 2017

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 compares the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) health researchers1,2 as a percentage of all researchers by WHO region (top left chart) and income group (top right chart). Weighted averages by WHO region (top left chart) and by income group (top right chart) are provided.

Points to note:
  • The weighted averages are derived from the 56 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 7% (South-East Asia region).
  • Differences are smaller between income groups with the proportion of FTE health researchers as a percentage of all researchers in low and lower middle income groups (15% and 14% respectively) slightly higher than high income and upper middle income groups (13% and 11% respectively).
 

To explore the data further:

  • Select a WHO region (top left chart) or income group (top right chart) to filter countries within that region or income group: regional averages are symbolized by the dashed vertical line; relevant countries will appear in the bottom chart (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 (28% and 24.5% 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, 48% are FTE health researchers, compared to 18%; 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 (28%) 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.