Tuesday October 16
12:30 – 1:30 pm, Arts 368
Everyone is welcome to attend!
Engaging communities in rural health workforce retention research
Australia and Canada face significant challenges in achieving adequately staffed rural health services. Factors affecting retention of rural health professionals involve complex interactions of organisational, professional and psychosocial/personal factors and research has shown psychosocial/personal factors to be a major determinant of retention. Building on these findings, I have developed a ‘whole-of-person’(WoP) retention framework that is being trialled in partnership with two public-health services in rural Australia. The WoP framework lends itself to context specific retention interventions. This presentation focuses on community engagement, place-based issues and strategies being trialled to improve the social connection of newly-arrived
non-locals. The challenges and opportunities for rural communities to take an active role in addressing workforce shortages will be discussed. This presentation has broad relevance for rural
communities, government agencies, and health authorities interested in exploring innovative approaches to address health workforce shortages in rural communities.
Dr. Cath Cosgrave is a researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Cosgrave lives and works in rural Australia. Her research specialises in recruitment and retention of
nursing and allied health professionals. She researches in partnership with health and community services recently piloting whole-of-person approaches to recruitment and retention and brokering community-based solutions for meeting the needs of health professionals
living in rural towns. She is committed to improving the quality of rural health services and the level of health equity and social inclusion for people from vulnerable population groups, particularly those living with mental illness.
