Another problem regarding human resources for
health is the skill mix imbalance, which can be appre-
ciated by the great differences in the composition of
health teams throughout different countries (e.g. ratio
nurses to physicians, specialists to physicians or healthcare management to physicians). As official data on
number of specialists are not always available, a com-
mon indicator of skill mix that can be compared
throughout countries is the ratio of nurses to physicians.
The World Health Report 2006 [2] states that this varies
between 5:1 in the World Health Organization ’ s (WHO)
African Region and 1.5:1 in the WHO Western Pacific
Region.