The effects of various retention factors on the choice of where rural origin Umthombo Youth Development Foundation health science graduates work.

Introduction: South Africa has an inequitable distribution of health workers between the public and private sector, with rural areas being historically underserved. As rural background of health workers has been advocated as the strongest predictor of rural practice, the Umthombo Youth Development Foundation (UYDF) has invested in recruiting and training rural-origin health science students since 1999 as a way of addressing staff shortages at 15 district hospitals in northern KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. UYDF's intervention is to support students to overcome their academic, social, and economic challenges and expose them annually to rural health practice.