Priorities for building Australian workforce capacity to leverage population-based, routinely collected data: views from pharmacoepidemiology

Aim: To explore perspectives of leaders in pharmacoepidemiology on building workforce capacity in the routinely collected data arena to enable researchers to generate evidence to support clinical and policy decision-making.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted between May and August 2018 with 13 leaders in pharmacoepidemiology in Australia. Discussion topics included training needs, workforce enablers, barriers and priorities for building capacity. The data was analysed using a content analysis approach.
Results: Leaders identified a range of knowledge and skills that are needed to work with routinely collected data and generate evidence to support clinical and policy decision making. Enablers identified included collaborations and promoting awareness to attract new people to work with this data type. Barriers included difficulty accessing data, lack of critical mass of human capital to build skill levels and funding issues.
Conclusions: Building workforce capacity involves addressing identified enablers and barriers. Central to building workforce capacity is the harmonisation of Australia’s data infrastructure, which can improve the way people work, learn, collaborate, share ideas and expand their professional network.