Background
The health workforce is a key pillar of the health systems.1,2 In turn, occupational therapists are healthcare professionals who aim to meet health, rehabilitation, and occupational needs of the population.3,4 To do so, the occupational therapy workforce must satisfy supply requirements, be equitably distributed (e.g., across geographic areas, service levels), and meet key competency standards.3 The development of the occupational therapy workforce worldwide has, however, been inconsistent across nations, even among those of similar income level. For instance, recent workforce data collated by the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) shows that Italy has less than one-tenth of the population-adjusted occupational therapists than Denmark.5 In turn, the same dataset indicates that 54 out of 89 countries – many of which are low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) – had less than one occupational therapist per 10,000 inhabitants, with a per capita supply of up to 22,000 times less than Denmark’s.5 Furthermore, occupational therapy workforce research also has shown inequitable distributions of occupational therapists within geographic areas (e.g., rural versus urban), sectors (e.g., public or private) or services (e.g., mental versus physical health) of the same country.6-8
The insufficient supply and inequitable distribution of the occupational therapy workforce occurs against a backdrop of an ageing population and a rise in burden of non-communicable conditions and disability, globally.9-14 For example, a 17% increase was observed in the world’s physical rehabilitation needs per capita from 1990 to 2017.13,15 Hence, a high and increasing global disability burden exists for an insufficient supply and inequitable distribution of the occupational therapy workforce.
In the abovementioned context, the WFOT initiated a process to develop a global strategy toward strengthening the worldwide occupational therapy workforce. The process began with the development of a three-pronged scoping review of the occupational therapy workforce research.16 First, we examined the global status of occupational therapy workforce research by mapping the volume of studies, as well as geographic areas addressed and the type of methods used, including stratifying funded and non-funded research.17 Second, we identified the types of findings that were generated by the occupational therapy workforce research worldwide, including trends in topics across nations.18 Lastly, limitations and future recommendations reported by the included papers were summarized and identified as possible facilitators or barriers for the strengthening of the occupational therapy workforce.19
In this short communication , we aim to build on this acquired knowledge, as well as on findings of an external environmental scan and feedback provided by experts, to perform a situational assessment of the development of occupational therapy workforce and its research - toward informing a global human resources strategy for strengthening the profession.