From leadership research to district action: Exploring the Role of Gender in the Public Health Supply Chain Workforce in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

We identified potential barriers for women entering the health supply chain workforce and provide recommendations on how to improve gender equity in the health supply chain workforce. Key Findings Gender inequities in the public health supply chain (PHSC) workforce exist in education, training, mentorship, travel, and leadership opportunities. Social and cultural norms around appropriate professions for women, domestic responsibilities, and work-related travel were found to hinder women’s entry, retention, and advancement in the PHSC workforce. Key Implications Public and private supply chain employers should improve recruitment and promotion practices to be more gender-sensitive and work with academic institutions to strengthen career pathways for women, including increasing awareness of PHSC professions. National stakeholders should implement gender-sensitive policies, including antidiscrimination, parental leave, and sexual harassment policies. ABSTRACT This article describes exploratory research conducted to understand pathways to entering the public health supply chain (PHSC) workforce in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to identify potential barriers for women working in this field and gather suggestions on how to improve gender equity in the PHSC workforce. Key informant interviews were conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi with health sciences students, health science education professionals, individuals currently working in the PHSC workforce, and global stakeholders. An online survey was conducted with responses from PHSC professionals across 26 countries. The survey and interviews revealed that respondents perceived that there were gender imbalances and inequities at all levels of the PHSC workforce. Respondents reported on barriers for women to receive the education, training, mentorship, and leadership opportunities needed to advance in this profession, barriers to traveling for work due to cultural norms and safety concerns, and a lack of policy and structural support for women to feel safe and supported at work. To improve gender equity in the PHSC workforce, we recommend strengthening career pathways for women; fostering mentorship opportunities among women; making recruitment practices more gender sensitive; implementing gender-sensitive policies; improving access to financial, physical, and technological resources; collecting and using gender-disaggregated data; and increasing the number of women in leadership positions.

Study methods

Gender analysis is a powerful approach to identify, understand, and address inequities in health systems.3 We assessed several gender analysis frameworks and conceptual models and chose Jhpiego’s Gender Analysis Framework12 as we could adapt it to the PHSC workforce to meet our research objectives (Figure 2). The framework consists of 4 domains: access to assets; practices and participation; beliefs and perceptions; and institutions, laws, and policies.

Limitations

As an exploratory study using primarily qualitative methods, the results presented are the perceptions of the survey respondents and key informant interviews. The results are not fully representative of either country or of other country contexts. The researchers used themes to develop preliminary recommendations to promote action, but these recommendations need to be validated by governments, other practitioners, and PHSC professionals themselves. These recommendations will need to be refined and validated to reflect emerging best practices in this nascent field.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one recurring leadership practice described in the source. Map its participants, incentives and constraints to a district setting, then design a small reversible staff pilot with an accountable owner. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Record implementation fidelity, staff review time, task quality and unintended burdens against a baseline. Use a comparison team where feasible and document alternative explanations before expanding. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Susan Truog; Katie Reynolds; Rebecca Alban; Louis Tshituka; Tafwirapo Chihana; Mariam Zameer; Amanda Pain; Bvudzai P Magadzire; Sierra Petrosky. Exploring the Role of Gender in the Public Health Supply Chain Workforce in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Global Health: Science and Practice (2025-05-09). https://doi.org/10.9745/ghsp-d-24-00232

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.