The problem of ghost workers in the health sector is an understudied phenomenon, yet the existence of this form of payroll fraud is a significant drain on public health and overall budgets in some countries, undercutting global and public health goals. This rapid review explores a selection of relevant research to identify types of payroll fraud related to the ghost worker problem, and analyses how the fraud triangle theory can help to explain the prevalence of ghost workers in the health sector.

Corruption in the health sector has high costs both in terms of lives lost and financial resources wasted. This document proposes new ways to approach health systems assessment to help diagnose corruption risk areas and help countries to decide which ant-corruption, transparency and accountability approaches should be deployed in response.