Newsletter, June 2022

To Dineke with many thanks and all the best wishes for the future! Dineke has stepped down as EUPHA Executive Director. We wish to thank her very much for helping to establish EUPHA-HWR as a section and for her continuing support over recent years!

15^th European Public Health (EPH) Conference, 9–12 Nov 2022

Join us in Berlin to discuss how better health workforce policy and research may contribute to EPH’s 2022 aim ‘Strengthening health systems: improving population health and being prepared for the unexpected’. The health workforce track includes a number of exiting events; the programme is already online; https://ephconference.eu/app/programme/index.php. EUPHA-HWR is (co-)organising three Workshops and participating in a Round Table:

• Building capacity for a resilient and healthy post-COVID health workforce, Berlin, Germany, 10-12 November 2022, EUPHA-HWR and WHO Regional Office for Europe (Tomas Zapata)
• Mobilising coping and support strategies: learning from healthcare workers’ experiences of COVID-19, Berlin, Germany, 10-12 November 2022, Robert-Koch-Institute Germany (Heide Weishaar) and EUPHA-HWR
• Public Health institutions and academia’s role in building capacity for health impact assessment, Berlin, Germany, 10-12 November 2022, EUPHA-HIA (Piedad Martin Olmedo), EUPHA-HWR and ASPHER
• Intergenerational solidarity in the health workforce: lessons for the future, Berlin, Germany, 10-12 November 2022, EUPHAnxt and Young Forum Gastein

EUPHA-HWR arranges a Join-the-Network session, preliminary planned for Thursday lunchtime – everybody very welcome! A wide range of health workforce research is also presented in oral/ pitch sessions and poster walks.

Presenters must register until 15 July 2022; https://ephconference.eu/Berlin-2022-290

Report. EUPHA-HWR spring webinar series

EUPHA-HWR has organised four webinars in collaboration with partnering organisations. The webinars provided opportunity for connecting colleagues from different countries and areas of health workforce research and improved knowledge sharing in times of COVID-19. The webinars attracted between 55 and 35 participants, including representatives from the Commission/ EU organisations, global and regional NGOs and professional associations/network, among others.

• The health workforce: in need of a „booster“ for mental health protection and violence prevention’, in collaboration with Sarada Das/CPME Secretary General, hosted by CPME.
• Healthcare workers walking the trans-sectoral health and social care walk: how to improve integration? in collaboration with Marius Ungureanu and Monica Brinzac, hosted by Babeș-Bolyai University,
• Building capacity for environmental health and climate action: engaging healthcare workers, in collaboration with George Valiotis/EHMA Director and Marija Jevtic/EUPHA-ENV President, hosted by EHMA.
• The contribution of health labour market to health workforce policy development, in collaboration with Pascal Zurn/WHO and Gilles Dussault/EUPHA-HWR Vice-president, hosted by WHO Headquarter.

Statement. Reproductive rights are human rights, please share the EUPHA statement on social media and within your networks

EUPHA SDG5 working group (coordinated by Elena Petelos) revisits the statement from November 2021 “Reproductive rights are human rights” given the recent developments in the United States limiting these human rights. We reaffirm our position and stand in solidarity with women all over the world. We, therefore, call to action our colleagues across professional associations, civil society, international and national bodies, to join their voices to ours and support women in claiming their human rights and colleagues safeguarding the reproductive rights of women and girls all over the world; https://eupha.org/repository/advocacy/Reproductive%20rights%202022.pdf.

Notices

Task force for the professionalization of the public health workforce. A new ASPHER and WHO Euro Task Force kicked off in June to join forces for improving the professionalization of the public health workforce. The Task Force is related the WHO-ASPHER Roadmap and led by Kasia Czabanowska, past ASPHER President. Ellen Kuhlmann represents EUPHA in the steering group (more information at: https://eupha.org/health-workforce-research; or ASPHER website).

EUPHA-HWR endorses a new roadmap ‘Building the public health and emergency workforce: a roadmap’, launched by WHO, 18 May 2022: Building from the consensus in the Italian G20 in 2021, WHO and many of the world’s leading public health organizations and schools have collaborated to develop a roadmap for strengthening the public health and emergency workforce. The roadmap offers a unique opportunity for Member States and regional and global bodies to join forces and adopt a coherent approach to the development and management of this critically needed category of workers. In particular, the roadmap focuses around three critical action areas:

1. Defining the essential public health functions and sub-functions for national contexts, including a focus on emergency preparedness and response.
2. Strengthening competency-based education for the provision of the essential public health functions.
3. Mapping and measurement of occupations delivering public health functions.

The full WHO  announcement and the roadmap are available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2022/05/18/default-calendar/phewf_roadmap_launch. The launch of the Roadmap (webinar) can be accessed at: https://youtu.be/hJwMjSWlleU.  

 The EHMA Conference 2022 took place in Brussels, Belgium, from 15–17 June 2022 under the theme ‘From people to systems: leadership for a sustainable future’. The “Workforce of the future“ was addressed as one of the main topics of the conference and attracted a wide range of interesting presentations and posters.

ESNO (European Specialised Nurses Organisation) launched their new programme Decades of the specialist nurse 2020-2030 on 12 May 2022 as part of the campaign #Caring4Nurses; https://fonse.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/PROGRAM_ESNO-CAMPAIGN_VERSION-12-MAY_2022-FINAL_FOR_PRINT.pdf

EUPHA-HWR congratulates Sarada Das, CPME, who has been appointed as Secretary General of CPME, the Standing Committee of European Doctors. Since many years Sarada is involved in health workforce projects and supporting health workforce development; most recent collaboration with EUPHA-HWR includes hosting/ organising a joint webinar (see spring webinar series).

Publications

WHO. Health Labour Market Analysis Guidebook, Geneva: WHO, 2022; https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240035546

Maier CB, Kroezen M, Busse R, Wismar M (eds.) Skill-mix innovation, effectiveness and implementation: Improving primary and chronic care (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, 45-372; https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/skillmix-innovation-effectiveness-and-implementation/change-management-in-health-care-settings-organizational-strategies-to-foster-skillmix-changes/9FB2C9DD206CDFD81A37B11B58ABF1B4

Kuhlmann E, Behrens GMN, Cossmann A, Homann S, Happle C, Dopfer-Jablonka A (2022). Exploring the gap between healthcare workers’ perceptions and medically approved infection risk: a German hospital case study into COVID-19 health workforce protection, Frontiers Public Health; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9163950/

Carrillo I, et al. Studies on the second victim phenomenon and other related topics in the pan-European environment: The experience of ERNST Consortium members, Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management, 2022; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/25160435221076985

Lopez-Pindea A …. Ungureanu M-I, et al., on behalf of the ERNST Consortium. Strategies for the pPsychological support of the healthcare workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic: The ERNST Study; Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022; 19(9), 5529; https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5529/htm

Collins et al. Distress and wellbeing among General Practitioners in 33 countries during COVID-19: Results from the cross-sectional PRICOV-19 Study to inform health system interventions. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022; https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5675/pdf

Stankovic S, Santric-Milicevic M. Use of the WISN method to assess the health workforce requirements for the high-volume clinical biochemical laboratories, Human Resources for Health, 19(Suppl. 1): 143; (https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00686-w

Kuhlmann et al., Health workforce preparedness and protection during the COVID-19 pandemic: a tool for rapid assessment of European Union countries, European Journal of Public Health, 2021 (Suppl 4), DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/ckab152

Special Issue. Global health and health workforce development: education, management and policy during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond, International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 2021, Supplement. Articles available ‘open access’ or ‘free access’, please visit the website; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10991751/2021/36/S1

Forthcoming in September 2022:

Syam A, Diallo K, Dussault G. Strengthening the collection, analysis and use of health workforce data and information: a Handbook. Geneva. World Health Organization

Dussault G (ed.) The health workforce situation in the WHO European Region. Copenhagen: World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe. Report to be submitted to the Regional Committee, September 2022 

The next EUPHA-HWR Newsletter is scheduled for 30 September 2022. Please send notices on conferences, etc., and publications related to health workforce issue until 20 September 2022.

Please forward this Newsletter to colleagues and friends who are interested in health workforce research; sign up for the EUPHA-HWR section, it is free of charge; https://eupha.org/health-workforce-research.

Ellen Kuhlmann, EUPHA-HWR President

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