OBJECTIVES: This study aims to assess the relationship between the quantity of health care providers, a country income and the health status of population. METHODS: This was a cross sectional study on the data collected from World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank database. Only data from 78 countries between the years 2003 - 2008 were selected among the 194 listed countries as they provide the most complete data for analysis. Relationship between health care professionals, countries’ income and country contributions to neonatal mortality rate, infant mortality rate, adult mortality rate, health life expectancy and life expectancy were assessed using Spearman correlation analysis in SPSS v15. RESULTS: Most of the countries included can be categorized as low income (n = 36), 25 as middle income countries and 11 as high income countries. Health care professionals were found to be uncorrelated with the infant mortality rate of the population except for moderate correlation between environment and  public health workers (r = -0.31; p<0.05). The number of dentistry personnel was moderately correlated with infant mortality rate, healthy life expectancy and life expectancy at birth of both sexes with p<0.05. A country income was however found to have a strong correlation (r = -0.52 to -0.63); p<0.05) with all assessed health status indicator. CONCLUSIONS: The number of health care professionals may not play a role as significant as a country income for the population overall health.