THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD WORKFORCE PLANNING (WP) IN REDUCING HEALTH INEQUALITIES
Authors: Ziller Sebastian 
Published: February 2025

Introduction: One fourth of the population (approx) in the EU is affected by poverty. Poverty leads to socio- economic exclusion and also to bad (oral) health. Health inequalities are observed both within and between EU Member States.

Nearly 10 per cent of the active EU workforce is engaged in the labour intensive health sector. Workforce planning (WP) consists of putting the right number of people, with the right skills at the right place, right time, doing the right things for which they are suited in order to achieve the health goals of the country. EU-COM estimates a gap in supply of human resources in health by 2020 to be nearly 1 million health professionals. Thus WP influences health inequalities in terms of delivery of oral healthcare services, education and interdisciplinary working.

Challenges: The “Green Paper on the European Workforce for Health” of the EU-COM (2008) also identified demographic changes as a key challenge to the management of human resources for health across Europe apart from health worker mobility or migration, the prevention of a “brain drain”, the need of workforce data collection and the coordination of training and education.

Areas of action: In response to the challenges in WP the EU-COM and other international institutions have launched various initiatives in the past. These activities target the key dimensions of WP: monitoring, analysis and strategic planning. Before nearly 10 years the 60th World Health Assembly of WHO urges member states to scale up capacity to produce oral-health personnel, providing a fair distribution of these professionals to the primary-care level, and ensuring proper service back-up by dentists. In 2010 the EU-COM started an EU Joint Action (JA) that provided a platform for cooperation between countries on forecasting health workforce needs and health workforce planning in close cooperation with Eurostat, OECD and WHO.

Recommendations: Simply increasing the numbers of health workforce will not be enough.

Connect research and politics. Create Health(y) Legislation: Invest in healthy environments and oral health promotion and coordinate existing oral health strategies to reduce health inequalities.

Integrate WP for oral health as part of national plans for health. Coordinate needs-based WP with a pan-European approach and recruitment-strategies which prevent “brain drain”.

Education: Oral diseases are among the most common global public health problems. This highlights the importance of training the next generation of dental professionals to promote greater oral health equity. Current training programmes should be designed taking into consideration future health needs and objectives.

Interdisciplinary work and team approach: Inter- and intraprofessional collaboration is the main key for better health. Interdisciplinary working in the healthcare sector is essential to reduce health inequalities for the population. Dentistry is an essential part of primary healthcare, and dentists should be able to communicate with other healthcare providers as well as with relevant professions. Encourage cross-sector partnership to develop the roles of health and social care professionals.