Human resource development planning for sustainable health and population programmes.
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Asia↗
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Results for “workforce development”
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
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Maximizing competence through professional development: increasing disability knowledge among One-Stop Career Center staff.
The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (USA) mandates that partners in the One-Stop Career Center system be prepared to serve a diverse customer base. Effective service delivery depends in part on a focus on human resources and professional development. This article presents innovative strategies for One-Stop Career Center staff training related to serving customers with disabilities. Findings from case study research conducted in several One-Stops across the country revealed that staff struggled with both knowledge and attitudes around disability issues. To address these concerns, local leaders developed practices that provided opportunities to gain practical skills and put acquired knowledge to use. These included a formalized curriculum focused on disability issues; informal support and consultation from a disability specialist; and exposure and learning through internships for students with disabilities. Implications are offered to stimulate thinking and creativity in local One-Stops regarding the most effective ways to facilitate staff learning and, in turn, improve services for customers with disabilities.
Consumer Behavior↗
Continuing-education needs of the currently employed public health education workforce.
OBJECTIVES: This study examined the continuing-education needs of the currently employed public health education workforce. METHODS: A national consensus panel of leading health educators from public health agencies, academic institutions, and professional organizations was convened to examine the forces creating the context for the work of public health educators and the competencies they need to practice effectively. RESULTS: Advocacy; business management and finance; communication; community health planning and development, coalition building, and leadership; computing and technology; cultural competency; evaluation; and strategic planning were identified as areas of critical competence. CONCLUSIONS: Continuing education must strengthen a broad range of critical competencies and skills if we are to ensure the further development and effectiveness of the public health education workforce.
Credentialing↗
(Re)imagining the Future of Genetic Counseling: A Reflexive Qualitative Analysis of Sociopolitical Power, Cultural Safety, Systemic Racism, and Comparative Practice in the United Kingdom, Aotearoa New Zealand and, Australia.
Genetic counseling is undergoing a rapid transformation as genomic medicine becomes embedded within mainstream healthcare systems. At the same time, the profession is being challenged to respond to systemic racism, colonial legacies, technological change, and evolving expectations regarding equity and justice. Historically, genetic counseling emerged within twentieth-century medical genetics and was influenced by political, social, scientific, and medical forces that included eugenic ideology, values, and practices. The profession has since evolved substantially toward psychosocial, patient-centered, and non-directive models of care. Contemporary debates regarding "newgenics" or "neugenics" further demonstrate how concerns regarding equity, reproductive ethics, disability, and genomic stratification continue to shape genomic healthcare discourse. This qualitative reflexive practice paper explores how systemic racism, colonial legacy, cultural safety and structural power shape genetic counseling practice in the United Kingdom (UK), Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, and how these forces continue to reshape the profession's future identity. A reflexive, narrative, and comparative qualitative approach was employed, grounded in the authors' lived professional experiences across UK and Australasian contexts and informed by purposively selected policy, professional and scholarly literature relating to cultural safety, dignity, anti-racism, and Human Rights-Based Decision-Making. Through iterative reflexive dialogue, comparative analysis, and thematic synthesis, four interrelated themes were developed examining sociopolitical context, systemic racism, cultural safety and technologization within contemporary genetic counseling practice. Comparative analysis identified substantial differences in how culturally responsive practice is conceptualized and operationalized across settings. In Aotearoa, cultural safety is strongly shaped by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, bicultural accountability, and Māori sovereignty frameworks. In Australia, culturally safer genomic care has increasingly developed through Indigenous-led initiatives and workforce reform, including the Australian Alliance for Indigenous Genomics (ALIGN). In contrast, UK practice remains largely situated within equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) frameworks that may insufficiently address systemic racism and structural power within increasingly diverse populations. Reflexive clinical examples demonstrated how inequities may emerge through undocumented patient values, standardized pathways, assumptions regarding autonomy, and misinterpretation of culturally specific communication styles. Re-imagining the future of genetic counseling requires more than just technological advancement. It requires reflexive engagement with dignity, inequity, and the sociopolitical realities of the populations served. These insights re-imagine a culturally grounded, socially responsive future for genetic counseling in an era shaped by genomic mainstreaming, digital transformation, artificial intelligence and workforce reform and one in which the profession remains ethically anchored, relationally attuned, and committed to justice-oriented practice.
Humans↗
Careers and patterns of work of Scottish dental graduates: 1991 and 1994.
OBJECTIVE: To describe current patterns of employment, career intentions and factors that influence career choice in young graduates. DESIGN: A cross-sectional postal survey. SUBJECTS: Graduates from the years 1991 and 1994 were selected to provide cohorts before and after the introduction of mandatory vocational training. A total of 232 graduates were sent questionnaires and 183 replied (77%): 90 men (49%) and 93 women (51%). SETTING: The cohorts all came from Scottish dental schools. When surveyed in 1996/1997, 66% were working in Scotland and 28% were in England. The rest were elsewhere in the UK or abroad. MEASURES: A questionnaire which had been piloted, applied to medical graduates and then adapted for dentists, was used. RESULTS: The most common post held was that of Associate in General Dental Practice (61% of the sample) and the majority (85%) were working full-time. Only small numbers indicated that they wished to undertake a career in academia (6) or the hospital dental service (17). In choosing a career, males were more influenced by financial factors (P = 0.009) and women by the availability of part-time employment (P = 0.000). CONCLUSION: Despite the recent adverse publicity about general dental practice, most young dentists see their future in this sector of the profession. More worrying is the comparatively small number who wish to work within the hospital service or in academia. Results also indicate the need to develop schemes to retain women in the workforce.
Adult↗
Employment opportunities for older adults: engineering design and research issues.
A challenge facing the engineering community is to find ways to integrate older people into the labor force. Despite laws regarding age discrimination and compulsory retirement, older people's participation in the labor force is declining. Unless strategies are developed to keep older people in the workforce, the issues of economic dependency and intergenerational equity are likely to become formidable in the near future. There are a number of areas where engineering applications can enhance older adults' employment opportunities. These include training, workplace and equipment design, and job design. An overview of current knowledge regarding aging and work is provided. Gaps in the knowledge base are identified as areas for research. Examples of how engineering can contribute to the integration of older people into work settings are presented.
Age Factors↗
Health and safety implications of European community 1992 (EC92). Management committee. American Industrial Hygiene Association.
Progress toward the implementation of a single, common market in Europe is well underway. European-wide standards and regulations are being formulated to remove the physical, fiscal, and technical barriers to the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people among member states. In 1992, the target year for implementation, members of the European Community are attempting to harmonize their health and safety standards so that each nation is on equal footing. The European Community has given high priority to health and safety to the extent that 1992 has been declared the "year of health and safety in the workforce." The EC-rulemaking bodies have developed requirements for significant hazards, including risk communication and risk assessment. Efforts are underway to develop directives addressing exposure limits, product safety, and environmental protection. The result of this ambitious strategy will present substantial opportunities and challenges for the member countries, American companies with EC-based subsidiaries, and any company that sells products in the European market. The end result could have a much farther reaching effect. To emphasize this, I will quote James Tye, president of the British Safety Council, who said, "The European Community will eventually be 700 to 800 million strong as other nations join it. I have no doubt it will be the dominant market in the world, assuredly as far as the field of health and safety is concerned. I also have no doubt that the standards we will be developing in the European Community will be followed by Japan and the United States.
European Union↗
Evolving research trends in bioinformatics.
The cross-disciplinary nature of bioinformatics entails co-evolution with other biomedical disciplines, whereby some bioinformatics applications become popular in certain disciplines and, in turn, these disciplines influence the focus of future bioinformatics development efforts. We observe here that the growth of computational approaches within various biomedical disciplines is not merely a reflection of a general extended usage of computers and the Internet, but due to the production of useful bioinformatics databases and methods for the rest of the biomedical scientific community. We have used the abstracts stored both in the MEDLINE database of biomedical literature and in NIH-funded project grants, to quantify two effects. First, we examine the biomedical literature as a whole and find that the use of computational methods has become increasingly prevalent across biomedical disciplines over the past three decades, while use of databases and the Internet have been rapidly increasing over the past decade. Second, we study the recent trends in the use of bioinformatics topics. We observe that molecular sequence databases are a widely adopted contribution in biomedicine from the field of bioinformatics, and that microarray analysis is one of the major new topics engaged by the bioinformatics community. Via this analysis, we were able to identify areas of rapid growth in the use of informatics to aid in curriculum planning, development of computational infrastructure and strategies for workforce education and funding.
Computational Biology↗
Isolation, flexibility and change in vocational training for general practice: personal and educational problems experienced by general practice registrars in Australia.
BACKGROUND: GP registrars, in common with other doctors, frequently experience high levels of stress; however, little is known about the nature and outcomes of personal and educational problems experienced during vocational training for general practice. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of our study was to elicit the nature, causes and effects of more severe problems experienced during vocational training for general practice from the registrar's viewpoint and put these into the context of their personal circumstances and background. METHODS: This qualitative study used detailed semi-structured telephone interviews with a selected subgroup of 33 of the 1999 entry cohort of general practice registrars in Australia who had reported serious self-defined problems during an earlier longitudinal questionnaire study. Registrars were asked about the nature, antecedents and outcomes of problems experienced during GP training, actions taken to resolve the problem, and their perceptions of what might have helped prevent or minimize the problem. RESULTS: Problems reported by registrars fell into five major themes: isolation (structural isolation, social isolation and professional isolation); flexibility and choice (administrative issues and balancing work with personal life); change and uncertainty (within general practice and training, intergenerational changes); teaching problems; and work conditions. Actions taken and effects of problems are also discussed in the light of workforce imperatives. Results have been used to develop a list of suggestions for the providers of general practice training. CONCLUSIONS: Registrars commonly experience problems during vocational training. These may be related to structural, social and professional isolation, or a lack of flexibility in training arrangements and balancing work and other commitments. Some of these problems may be amenable to relatively simple solutions involving term placements, selection of training practices and administrative adjustments.
Attitude of Health Personnel↗
Generalism and the need for health professional educational reform.
Powerful forces are intensifying change in health care delivery: population-based thinking about health care, especially emphasis on prevention; the reemergence of the biopsychosocial mode of thinking in health care; the need to increase capacity for health services research; and the knowledge that reductions may be needed in the use of high-priced physicians, the number of acute-care hospital beds, and the duplication of expensive equipment. Academic health centers are being forced to adjust their educational offerings to these realities of the service sector. Yet, institutional obstacles stand in the way of needed education reform: fragmentation of the sense of community in health professions schools, turf-related forces that separate various health professions, inflexible institutional structures that prevent adequate responses to a changing environment, an increasingly acute shortage of money to support education, and the devalued status of teaching within our institutions. Universities must develop centers to determine regional and local workforce needs and subsequently establish regionally based educational networks of academic and community health centers. Further, academic centers must demonstrate a real commitment to multiprofessional, interdisciplinary team approaches to a patient-centered system. In parallel, the institution must create a student-centered value system.
Academic Medical Centers↗
Joint health and safety committee education and the value of bipartite cooperation in the healthcare sector in British Columbia, Canada.
In 1999, in British Columbia, Canada, the healthcare workforce, healthcare employers and unions partnered to develop the Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare (OHSAH), a bipartite (labor-management)-governed organization with a mandate to implement evidence-based programs to reduce injury rates in health care. Within a year of its establishment, OHSAH began delivery of a province-wide joint committee education and development (JCED) program. A telephone survey after six months showed that the training program had modestly increased the establishment of new programs and had significantly increased positive health and safety behaviors and quality of JC functioning. The spirit of bipartite collaboration fostered by this and other OHSAH programs has been hugely successful at reducing injuries, time loss, and cost, and should be promoted.
British Columbia↗
Research priorities in occupational safety and health: a review.
Changes in the world of work in the last few decades have markedly affected questions regarding occupational safety and health (OSH). Jobs in our economy continue to shift from manufacturing to services. Longer hours, shift work, reduced job security, temporary work are realities in the modern workplace, new chemicals, materials, processes are developed at an ever accelerating pace. The workforce is also changing. It will become older and more racially diverse and women are increasing. These changes present new challenges to protect worker safety and health and it was been indispensable to redefine priorities, by consulting all those involved in OSH. The present study therefore made a critical comparative analysis of the main published projects to identify research priorities in the OSH field, comparing methods, approaches and results. Comparison of the priority areas established in each of these studies is inherently difficult due to differences in socio-cultural backgrounds, in the methods employed to identify priority topics, and the many factors involved. However, it is clear that the Delphi technique is widely used as a reliable method, in that it covers a broad range of qualified witnesses, from a variety of backgrounds--such as trade union representatives and researchers--providing different viewpoints. It also takes account of the intrinsic features of OSH which--compared to other disciplines--involves multidisciplinary factors calling into play a range of scientific settings, such as toxicologists, molecular biologists, epidemiologists, occupational hygienists and occupational physicians. This analysis showed how important it is to reach consensus among all those operating in the OSH sector, in order to establish standard methods that can be applied in different contexts, and give results that can be validly compared.
Occupational Health↗
Employee contributions for dependent medical coverage: balancing cost, compensation and society.
This article explores the inception of the employee contribution concept to dependent medical coverage. The author discusses the developments that have occurred in the changing workforce as well as the effects of increasing medical costs. It considers the equity issues of unfair subsidies in medical benefit premiums for dependents. Finally, a potential solution is offered that would replace the multitiered structures available today.
Cost Control↗
Position paper on occupational therapist's role in work related therapy. Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists.
In summary, occupational therapists use work related assessment and interventions to assist clients experiencing physical, psychological, cognitive and/or sociocultural disabilities to determine their competitive employment potential and to maximize their work performance. Clients with work histories (transient or consistent), as well as those with non-existent work histories, are all suitable candidates. For some clients, more formal educational training will be required for re-entry into the workforce. For others the use of previously developed work skills and habits can be transferred to new or related occupations. Although successful work vocational outcomes require the contribution of a number of health and education professionals, the occupational therapists have a unique contribution and role to play in work-related therapy and vocational rehabilitation.
Canada↗
Australian rural midwives: perspectives on Continuing Professional Development.
INTRODUCTION: Continuing Professional Development (CPD) provides an important counter to workforce pressures affecting rural midwives; however, there is a lack of information about how rural midwives understand and perceive CPD and how this is situated in the practising and social context. This research aimed to explore rural midwives' experiences and perceptions of CPD in context. METHODS: A qualitative approach gathered focus group data on the beliefs, opinions and perceptions of a total of 52 rural midwives (nine focus groups), across three Australian states: Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. The focus groups were taped and transcribed verbatim and data was analysed thematically using an inductive approach, with the aid of an NVivo (QSR Software, Durham, UK) computer program. RESULTS: Four key themes emerged from the data: midwives' views of CPD; their motivations for undertaking CPD; the choices they make around CPD; and how context factors facilitate their involvement in CPD. Congruence with issues evident in the literature were: the difficulties associated with role diversity, the need for acquiring key skills before engaging in CPD, and the importance of a culture supportive of ongoing learning. CONCLUSIONS: CPD can be considered an important strategy for the retention and professionalism of midwives. The study findings helped fill a gap in the literature about rural and regional Australian midwives' perspectives on CPD.
Attitude of Health Personnel↗
General practitioners in hospitals.
The authors review General Practitioners in Hospitals, a report prepared by the School of Medical Education, University of New South Wales (1993) for the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council Medical Workforce Group on Hospital Training and Career Development. The authors acknowledge that this report represents the most comprehensive look at GP involvement in hospitals across Australia, but suggest that its conclusion 'general practitioners play a substantial role in the provision of medical care in public hospitals around Australia' may be an overstatement. They discuss shortcomings associated with the study, including: definitional issues; variation in levels of involvement according to hospital type; potential biases introduced by using self-report of hospital administrators as the source of data; insufficient emphasis being placed on the views of GPs; and the validity of extrapolations.
Australia↗
Sustained growth but non-sustainable urbanisation in Penang, Malaysia.
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Asia↗
Grassroots ergonomics: initiating an ergonomics program utilizing participatory techniques.
The introduction of ergonomics programs throughout the world requires an easy to understand and inexpensive process. Participatory ergonomic intervention techniques have proven to be beneficial in the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders. The participatory approach to ergonomics has also been found to be a useful application within industrialized (developed) countries and industrially developing countries (IDCs). Grassroots Ergonomics principles utilize expertise within a workforce that focuses on participatory ergonomics interpretations of quantitative and qualitative risk and exposure assessment information that in turn results in a peer-developed ergonomics training. Regardless of the intricacy of the exposure assessment tools, workers should fully assist in gathering and analyzing data, then in identifying and implementing solutions. A coordinated and multidisciplinary application of this approach within IDCs would succeed in the creation and sharing of job-specific ergonomics training information for high physical exposure professions, such as agriculture, fishing, forestry, mining, and small-scale enterprises, to initiate ergonomics programs regionally.
Community Participation↗