Dear colleagues,

Please find below the EUPHA-HWR Newsletter, September 2022. Hope to see many of you at EPH in Berlin! 

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

The EPH Conference is just around the door. Here are some suggestions of EUPHA-HWR co-organised/supported events.

• Building capacity for a resilient and healthy post-COVID health workforce, workshop organised by EUPHA-HWR and WHO Regional Office for Europe (Tomas Zapata), Thursday, 9.00-10.00h, 1L, room Beta 4
• Mobilising coping and support strategies: learning from healthcare workers’ experiences of COVID-19, round table organised by Robert-Koch-Institute Germany (National Public Health Institute) (Heide Weishaar) and EUPHA-HWR, Thursday, 16.30-17.30h, 4L, room Beta 4
• Public Health institutions and academia’s role in building capacity for health impact assessment, workshop organised by EUPHA-HIA (Piedad Martin Olmedo), EUPHA-HWR and ASPHER, Thursday, 10.30-11.30h, 2L, room Beta 4
• A digital literate health workforce for a resilient future, round table organised by EUPHAnxt and Young Forum Gastein, Friday, 40-12.40h, 6L, room Beta 4

EUPHA-HWR Join-the-Network session, everybody very welcome; Friday, 12.45-13.45h, room Gamma 8-9

There is much more to learn and discuss about health workforce research, please visit the programme and watch out for the health workforce track; https://ephconference.eu/app/programme/index.php.

Deadline reminder for presenters: you are asked to upload your slides until 28 October 2022; please also follow the presenter instructions for workshops, oral and pitch presentations and posters; https://ephconference.eu/presenter-instructions-113  

Conferences – save the date!

The Fifth Global Forum on Human Resources for Health (HRH) takes place in Geneva, 3-5 April 2023; https://www.who.int/news/item/12-04-2022-save-the-date--fifth-global-forum-on-human-resources-for-health. ‘The Forum will be held under the theme of Protecting, safeguarding, and investing in the health and care workforce. It will examine the required policy solutions, investments and multi-sectoral partnerships to address health and care workforce challenges and advance health systems towards universal health coverage and health security. The outcomes of the Forum will inform the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on UHC in September 2023’. More information will shortly be available at: https://www.who.int/teams/health-workforce

Notices

European Health Management Association (EHMA) and Health First Europe (HFE) organised a launch of the report of the EU Health Policy Platform Stakeholder Network on ‘Profiling and Training the Healthcare Workforce of the Future’ on ‘Essential skills for a resilient and effective European health workforce‘, 22 September 2022. The organisers highlight that the ‘report, through its recommendations addressing policy-makers at European and national, regional, local level, aims to trigger change on the ground by raising awareness of the existing and foreseeable skills gaps of the European health workforce in the context of visible trends and challenges.’ The Stakeholder Network has identified the following four skill areas: Digital, eHealth and AI skills; Patient-centred communication skills; Interdisciplinary and coordination skills; Green skills. EUPHA is a partner of the Stakeholder Network. The report is available at; https://ehma.org/2022/09/22/strengthening-the-resilience-and-skills-of-the-future-health-workforce/

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 to the WHO-ASPHER Roadmap and led by Kasia Czabanowska, past ASPHER President. Ellen Kuhlmann represents EUPHA in the steering group.

Applied epidemiology workforce targets and development of an assessment tool, WHO Geneva (Marion Muehlen) organised a kick-off of an international Technical Advisory Group on 19 September 2022. A literature review and policy recommendations have been prepared and are currently in the process of discussion and agreement. A final report will be available in early 2023; EUPHA-HWR has been invited to the Advisory Group.

 Building a European Health Union: Opening borders for intensive care specialists, this Policy Dialogue was organised by the European Health Centre on 20 September 2022 in Brussels/virtual. Panelists included Matthias Wismar/ European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Ellen Kuhlmann/ EUPHA-HWR, Maurizio Cecconi, European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. The recorded policy dialogue is available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTKxZhNeqHY&feature=youtu.be

 WHO Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge, in his report at the 72^nd session of the WHO Regional Committee called for investment in the health workforce: ‘The COVID-19 pandemic showed both the fragility and the strength of our health workforce. Health workforce absenteeism has increased by two thirds since the COVID-19 pandemic. But we should also commend our health workforce: how innovative they have been to absorb, for example, digital tools. And many of you have also increased their salaries. ... And let's not forget that 89% of nurses are women, 98% of midwives are women and 49% of doctors are women. So, everything we do for the workforce is advancing gender equality‘; https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/13-09-2022-the-new-normal-is-dual-track-address-by-and-report-of-the-who-regional-director-for-europe-at-the-72nd-who-regional-committee-for-europe

Tomas Zapata, WHO Regional Office for Europe, has highlighted the importance of the healthcare workforce in the webinar series of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies related to the theme ‘Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: policies to address the health care backlog’. The recorded lectures and discussion are available at: https://eurohealthobservatory.who.int/news-room/events/item/2022/09/08/default-calendar/policies-to-overcome-backlogs  …

Publications

The WHO-Euro launched a new Regional Report ‘Health and care workforce in Europe: time to act’ on 14 September 2022 during the 72^nd WHO Regional Committee for Europe meeting. ‘This report focuses on identifying effective policy and planning responses to these HCWF challenges across the Region. The report presents an overview of the HCWF situation in the Region (focusing on medical doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists and physiotherapists, for whom data are available) and identifies relevant policy options, their expected benefits and potential facilitators or barriers to successful implementation’, available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/362379

WHO. The gender pay gap in the health and care sector: a global analysis in the time of COVID-19. WHO: Geneva, 2022. ‘The results of this groundbreaking report suggest that once age, education, occupational category, and other such factors are considered, globally women face a 24 percentage point pay gap compared to men across the health and care sector. Furthermore, among women in the health and care sector there is evidence of a motherhood gap. Much of the gender pay gap in health and care is unexplained by labour market attributes that should be the sole factors determining wages. The report assesses gender wage gaps over time and finds a particular persistence in this unexplained portion of the gender pay gap. In addition, evidence indicates that the employment impact of COVID-19 in the sector disproportionately affected workers at the low end of the pay scale, most of whom are women‘; https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240052895

WHO Euro. Actions to strengthen resilience of health workers in south-eastern Europe in response to COVID-19 and beyond: implementation of WHO/ILO guidance and mapping of priority needs for occupational health and safety programmes for health workers, 2022; https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/WHO-EURO-2022-6044-45809-65955

WHO. Health Labour Market Analysis Guidebook. Geneva: WHO, 2021; https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240035546 

European Policy Centre. Building a European Health Union: Opening borders for intensive care specialists, 2022; https://www.epc.eu/en/publications/Building-a-European-Health-Union-Opening-borders-for-intensive-care-s~474618

Biljana Buljugic B, Šantrić Milićević M. Analysis of accreditation standards for undergraduate medical studies in Serbia through the lens of the National Health Workforce Accounts. Research Square, 2022; https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-64019/v1
https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-64019/v1

Burau V, Falkenbach M, Neri S, Peckham S, Wallenburg I, Kuhlmann E. How the health workforce contributes to health systems resilience: comparing possibilities for innovation under Covid-19, International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 2022; 37: 2032–2048; http://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.3446

Collins C, Clays E, Van Poel E, 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; 19(9): 5675; doi: 10.3390/ijerph19095675

Collins C, Van Poel E, Šantrić Milićević M, et al. Practice and System Factors Impact on Infection Prevention and Control in General Practice during COVID-19 across 33 Countries: Results of the PRICOV Cross-Sectional Survey. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022; 19(13): 7830; doi: 10.3390/ijerph19137830

GBD 2019 Human Resources for Health Collaborators. Measuring the availability of human resources for health and its relationship to universal health coverage for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Lancet, 2022; 399(10341): 2129–2154; doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00532-3

Groenewegen P, Boerma W, Spreeuwenberg P, Seifert B, Schäfer W, Batenburg R, Van Tuyl L. Task shifting from general practitioners to practice assistants and nurses in primary care: A cross-sectional survey in 34 countries. Primary Health Care Research & Development, 2022; 23: E60; doi:10.1017/S1463423622000470

Stankovic S, Santric Milicevic M. Use of the WISN method to assess the
health workforce requirements for the high-volume clinical biochemical
laboratories. Hum Resour Health, 2022; 19(Suppl 1):143; doi:10.1186/s12960-021-00686-w

Tripković K, Šantrić Milićević M, Mandić Miladinović M, Kovačević L, Bjegović Mikanović V, Vuković D. Implementation of the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) Method in Determining Staff Requirements in Public Health Laboratories in Serbia. Disaster Med Public Health Prep, 2022; 16(1): 71–79; doi: 10.1017/dmp.2020.133

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

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The next EUPHA-HWR Newsletter scheduled for 31 December 2022. Please send notices on conferences, etc., and publications related to health workforce issue until 20 December 2022. Please forward this Newsletter to colleagues and friends who are interested in health workforce research; sign up for the EUPHA-HWR section; https://eupha.org/health-workforce-research.

Ellen Kuhlmann

EUPHA-HWR President

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