Global Healthcare Workforce Data Analysis

General Info: Analyze global trends in the healthcare profession, integrating interactive dashboards and policy discussions created by the R Shiny app. This project was completed for the Multivariate Analysis course, including a detailed report and a 40-minute classroom presentation. Additionally, an extended report was completed in October, providing more statistical analysis.

Project Time Length: March 2024 - May 2024 & Oct 2024

Introduction:

Healthcare is a global area of exploration since it is always associated with our daily lives. The Global Healthcare Workforce Data Analysis contains a section on data cleaning, data visualization, statistical analysis, dynamic maps, and relevant policy or significant events discussions behind the trends of availability of the healthcare workforce.

During the data cleaning process, the group utilized forward substitution and the average value for missing values. The data was cleaned from 100+ countries to 66 countries across different continents over a 13-year period (sourced from W.H.O). For the data visualization, we developed an interactive R Shiny app that can display the density of each healthcare profession each year by clicking. The density maps provided a more direct way for people to understand the changes in density around the world. In terms of statistical analysis, we applied linear regression (simple and multivariate) to analyze the correlation between each variable and the trend of each healthcare profession.

Project Results:

From the analysis, we identified that, for instance, the density of medical doctors, nurses and midwives, and dentists in Australia has consistently increased, while the density of Australian pharmacists dramatically decreased between 2009 and 2011. Australia has a great medical system with a high density of healthcare professionals in Oceania, which might be because of the contribution of the 10-year National Health Workforce Strategy 2021-2031 plan (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, 2023). Meanwhile, the Australian government introduced an Oral Health plan 2014-2024 (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care., 2016), encouraging the public to pay attention to their oral health and leading to a higher demand for dentists.

Although there is a continuing growth trend in the density of the healthcare workforce in Australia, the Australian government still needs to face the challenges of the shortage of nurses, even though the density of nurses and midwives is higher than other types of healthcare professionals in Australia. The reasons causing the shortage problem include a higher portion of aging nurses nearing retirement and people who require healthcare services, workplace violence, and a gendered workforce. The Australian College of Nursing reports that 10 percent of nurses report nursing assaults (Victoria University, 2023) which might cause a lower retention rate. However, to explain the decline in the density of pharmacists in Australia, the group needs to do further research to determine the reasons behind this situation.

Significance of the Project:

Data source: The group utilizes the dataset from the W.H.O., which reflects the most realistic situation of countries. By utilizing the data from the authorized organization, our analysis is more accurate and provides more reliable conclusions for people to refer to.
Visualization: The project leverages several ways to present the changes in the density of each healthcare workforce, such as an interactive web application in the R Shiny app and the density maps. It is easy to understand for both professional and non-tech people.
Deep Research: The research group provides comprehensive insights to explain trends in the density of each healthcare professional for most countries, combined with the interpretation of policies to support our results. People can easily understand the reasons behind these changes.

Discussion:

The research was conducted only between 2007 and 2019, establishing a foundational understanding of healthcare workforce density before the pandemic. Many missing values after 2019 from the W.H.O., which might be because of the pandemic, and most countries did not have opportunities to conduct a more complete. Hence, further research can assess the impacts of the pandemic on the density of healthcare professions and compare the density before the pandemic and after the pandemic. This analysis is significant for informing future healthcare policies and understanding the systemic resilience of healthcare infrastructures.

Citation:

Victoria University. (2023). Understanding the nursing shortage in Australia.

Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. (2023). Supporting all Australians to be healthy through affordable, person-centred primary healthcare.

Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. (2016). Healthy mouths, healthy lives – Australia’s National Oral Health Plan 2015–2024.

The National health Workforce Accounts database, World Health Organization, Geneva