Opportunities:
Global cross-stakeholders input (“Rehabilitation 2030”; World
Rehabilitation Alliance) on strengthening rehabilitation services and
human resources, within a global development agenda that increasingly
includes the need to strengthen rehabilitation
services28 and the health workforce
overall.2
Global tools (e.g., WHO’s Rehabilitation Competency Framework; Guide
for Rehabilitation Workforce Evaluation; National Health Workforce
Accounts) recently developed for (cross-)professional
developments.2,18,29
The WFOT is developing a global workforce
strategy3,17-19 and has developed minimum education
standards.46
The WFOT has observed a rise in membership from LMICs.
Multi-year, multi-cycle health workforce and profession-specific
workforce strategies exist (e.g., nursing & midwifery), providing
development, implementation, and evaluation
experiences.2,26
Licensing bodies can be positioned to collect and maintain key
occupational therapy workforce data, otherwise coming from too many
sectors and databases.19
Occupational therapists promote independence, societal participation
and economic productivity – the societal return of scale up
investments can be positive, if studied.
Increasing numbers of occupational therapists trained at master or
doctoral levels,8 possibly able to carry out
workforce research with additional training or support.
Preliminary findings from the occupational therapy workforce research,
coupled with solid workforce evidence, can be used for more advanced
study designs (e.g., discrete experimental choices; testing
recruitment and retention packages).18,19
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Threats:
Rates of funding support for occupational therapy research
(20%)17 less than health workforce research or
rehabilitation research (>50%),30
which affects the quality of the scientific methods.
Cross-professional workforce research sometimes does not differentiate
or provide stratified results for the occupational therapy profession
(e.g., aggregated for therapists or allied health
professionals).19
Lack of capacity to scale up the occupational therapists supply in
countries where training programs or occupational therapists are
(nearly) absent.8,21
Lack of professional regulation, especially in many
LMICs.19
Lower priority in the health
agenda (e.g., not a large health workforce, without representation or
training programs in many countries, and the focus on functional,
well-being, and occupational outcomes versus survival or other medical
outcomes).
Underdeveloped rehabilitation systems of care, particularly in many
LMICs, contrasting with the population ageing and growing
rehabilitation needs.13-15
The lack of occupational therapy workforce data in major databases /
repositoria (e.g., National Health Workforce Accounts only provide
occupational profile information for Medical Doctors, Nurses,
Midwiferies, Dentists, and Pharmacists; Global Health Workforce
Statistics database provides data for multiple professions, including
physiotherapists and their assistants but not for occupational
therapists), impeding higher-levels analysis of the health workforce
to be inclusive of the occupational therapy
workforce.27,32,33
Occupational therapy is not described and classified as one discrete
occupation within the
International Standard
Classification of Occupations31 and not mentioned in
the global strategy for the human resources for
health.2
Lack of a standard framework of data elements for the collection of
occupational therapy workforce data 19
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