Health workers in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic are concentrated in cities, although more than 70% of the country’s population lives in rural areas.6 In an attempt to correct this maldistribution, the Laotian health ministry began to develop a strategy for the retention of health workers in those areas. This strategy was built, in part, on the national “2020 Health Person- nel Development Strategy” and on a governmental decree that established guidelines for implementing financial incentives for rural civil servants.7 To assess which of WHO’s 16 recom- mendations would be most effective in the Laotian context, the Ministry of Health – in partnership with CapacityPlus and WHO8 – used a retention survey tool that had been developed from the recommendations9 to conduct a discrete choice experi- ment.10 The results of surveys involving 970 students who were training to become professional health workers and 483 people who were already health workers, indicated that salary levels became less of an issue when a set of other, highly valued incen- tives, such as promotion and study opportunities, was offered.