Keeping Up to Date’ aims to increase awareness of the reasons to use evidence in practice, to stimulate debate about evidence, and to encourage the health promotion workforce to contribute to the evidence base by designing, delivering, and evaluating rigorous programmes.
39th edition - Winter 2013
This edition is on social determinants of health – towards an equitable Pacific health workforce.
This brief review is in two parts. Firstly, a brief overview of the SDH approach and its implementation in New Zealand. The second part focuses on one key aspect of the model; having access to a range of ethncially diverse health providers as a strategy to reduce ethnic health disparites in multicultural societies.
Key Results
The need for ethnic diversity in the health workforce is wider than just the medical and clinical setting. Patient and client satisfaction and choice in accessing quality healthcare are indeed important issues. As previously stated, Pacific representation is important in all sectors of the health workforce. Pacific health leaders, researchers and policymakers are just as important as Pacific clinicians and medical personnel in New Zealand. Developing a capable and robust Pacific health workforce requires a commitment from the government, Pacific communities, and educational institutions in order to ensure that young Pacific school leavers choose health as a career pathway, are able to meet the requirements necessary to enter tertiary institutions, and are supported and encouraged to complete their studies and enter the health workforce.