workforce,” he says. “We are the ones that can explain that there are major differences between how dental practices operate and public health care is provided.” He suggested that with the introduction of the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), there will be a greater integration of dentistry into public health care. “Now, it will be more important than ever to ensure that policy makers and workforce planners understand the unique character of the dental sector and the factors that influence our workforce,” he says. of the CDCP. “The CDCP has changed the equation quite a bit,” says Papadopoulos. “Older people tend to need more care, and historically they’ve been less able to afford it, so in making care more accessible to this high-need group, the CDCP has increased demand.” How many eligible people will sign up for the CDCP and how many of them will use it is still being determined. Papadopoulos notes that demand for care is distinct in different parts of Canada. “There are some regions where there is an older population,” he says. “And there are other places with fewer oral health care workers. Both supply and demand are specific to location.” Papadopoulos is hopeful that more resources will be allocated to data collection related to the oral health workforce in the coming years. “At the moment, 30% of people living in Canada don’t have a family doctor, so the consequences of not having the health workforce that we need is something that we are all thinking about,” he says. “Oral health care is primary care. And our workforce contributes significantly to the health of Canadians. Overall, there is better appreciation of this now.” Papadopoulos explains that knowing how many workers there are in a specific workforce sector addresses the supply side of the question. But then there is demand. How many people need care? What kind of care do they need? In medicine, there are records kept of each patient visit, and these records are anonymized and used by the health care system to make forecasts. In dentistry, records of patient visits are not collected for use in this way. “We don’t know things like how many people in Canada age 65 to 70 need a root canal each year, because the data wasn’t being collected,” says Papadopoulos. “It was very eyeopening to see the level of detail workforce planners had for medicine. They could create different models for the future. But what I found even more striking is, despite those levels of power and data, it was still very challenging to come up with a plan for the health care workforce of the future.” Papadopoulos says that because health care is dynamic and there is so much uncertainty, new technology or unexpected demographic change will likely alter what is needed in a health care workforce. “If new technology makes treatment more effective for a specific illness, then we can presume that we’ll need fewer people to treat that kind of illness,” says Papadopoulos. “It’s extremely complex. And in dentistry we are just at the beginning. As a profession, we don’t do a lot of forecasting about how technology will change the oral health care people need. There are so many variables that you must take into account when you are trying to figure out how many oral health care workers will be needed in five years.” Some of the variables related to the demand for oral health care in 2024 include the aging population and the introduction WHAT IS A DATA DESERT? “Data serves as the truth inside the complex web of social structure, weaving through the layers to serve as a foundation for sensible choices and forwardthinking policies. But when these links are absent or essentially incorrect, we find ourselves in ‘data deserts,’ as specialists refer to these situations.These are locations that are conceptually and geographically defined by a startling lack of data, either as a result of systemic and historical underrepresentation of particular communities, a lack of digital infrastructure, or a lack of collecting attempts. These informational gaps, which lack credible or accurate data, frequently result in regulations that can skew social frameworks, resulting in unfair behaviours and systemic problems.” —Akshitha Vemuru in her article “Data Deserts: Navigating the Barren Regions of Information Scarcity” in The St. Andrews Economist, November 2023 Knowing how many workers there are in a specific workforce sector addresses the supply side of the question. But then there is demand. How many people need care? What kind of care do they need? Issues and People
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