Three separate but related projects were undertaken to link population health needs to health human resource planning, to illustrate the value and challenges in using health human resource data to inform policy decisions on nursing productivity and to generate evidence based retention policies to guide nursing workforce sustainability. Using health survey data, project 1 explored the level, distribution and patterns of health indicators by demographic and social strata. In project 2, productivity was studied by analyzing select acute care nursing services using Management Information Systems data for nursing hours and other inputs and Discharge Abstract Database data for inpatient episodes of care and severity. Project 3 surveyed former nurses and registered nurses across six Canadian jurisdictions. (AU)