WHO and International Council of Nurses’ State of the World’s Nursing (SoWN) Report 2025
WHO Overview
“Central to the achievement of the Agenda for Sustainable Development is an adequate, equitably distributed and fully supported health workforce. Nurses are the largest occupational group and represent an indispensable force with which to combat inequities in access to health services and progress towards health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while advancing gender equality through the strengthening and empowerment of a highly feminized profession.”
Julia Challinor
RN, PhD, MA Ed, MSc Medical Anthropology – Associate Adjunct Professor, University of California San Francisco
Implications for oncology nursing:
- Annex 1 has WHO regional nursing workforce data for comparison
- For the first time, the SoWN report includes categorization of professional nurses versus auxiliary nurses according to the ILO criteria (see Annex 2). This is helpful when advocating for appropriate oncology nurse staffing.
- Check out https://apps.who.int/nhwaportal/# for specific country-level nursing workforce data useful for comparison and advocacy!