Two Gateways to Understanding the Health Workforce: Insights From Working With Organizational and Population-Level Data

Abstract

Advancements in health workforce research depend on access to timely, detailed, and practically oriented data. Yet researchers in this field often encounter barriers to data access, which impacts the research that we are able to conduct. In this article, we share insights as researchers who have studied health workforces through a range of data sources accessed across traditional academic and embedded scientist roles. We concentrate on unique opportunities and limitations from two experiences: (1) use of Statistics Canada surveys as part of university-based studies and (2) health organization administrative data as embedded homecare scientists at VHA Home HealthCare. Collectively, these complementary data sources contribute to providing a more comprehensive advancement of our understanding of personal support workers in Canada. We hope that sharing insights from these experiences provides inspiration and guidance to others who want to pursue a similar path in health workforce research.