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Authors

Ian Bates, Director Pharmacy Education Taskforce, and Andreia Bruno, FIPEd Project Coordinator and Researcher

Summary

The 2012 FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Survey is a tool that is used to collect data on the pharmacy workforce at the country level, with the objective of analysing and monitoring the status of the pharmacy workforce and pharmacy education.

The survey was conducted using English, French and Spanish on-line submission forms; workforce data was received for 90 countries and territories representing 2.5 million pharmacists and nearly one and half million technicians and support cadres (available for download from www.fip.org/humanresources.

Pharmacy workforce density varies considerably between countries and WHO regions and generally correlates with population numbers and country level economic development indicators. Those countries and territories with lower economic indicators tend to have relatively fewer pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.

African countries tended to have lower densities of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and support cadres, and also pharmacies. This shortage has implications for inequalities in access to medicines and medicines expertise. Ongoing efforts are needed to ensure capacity building of skilled medicines expertise to meet the pharmaceutical health needs of populations. In addition, some countries and territories have many times more pharmacies than pharmacists, which may imply a renewed need for supervision of medicines and medicines use in these geographies.

The proportion of the female workforce is a majority globally, with some regions having an average female workforce of more than 65%.

Most pharmacists are employed in community retail pharmacy, followed by hospital, industry, research and academia, and regulation. The distribution across sectors varies among countries though regional trends can be seen.

3.1 Introduction and methods

The 2012 FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Survey was conducted between September 2011 and June 2012; the objective of the survey being to analyse, monitor and report on the status of the pharmacy workforce and pharmacy education.

GLOBAL PHARMACY WORKFORCE DESCRIPTION

PART 3

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FIP Member Organisations, and respondents to the 2009 FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Survey together with other contacts for professional bodies, regulatory bodies and universities were approached to provide country-level data.

The survey was developed in collaboration with the FIP Collaborating Centre, University College London, School of Pharmacy and the FIP Education Initiatives (FIPEd) Working Group on Pharmaceutical Sector Human Resources. The survey sought data relating to pharmacy education, workforce and relevant regulations for both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians and was available in English, French and Spanish. The dataset was cleaned and checked with respondents before being prepared for analysis. The survey tool, data table, and the final report are available for download from www.fip.org/ humanresources.

A total of 90 countries and territories responded to the survey, an increase on 56 respondent countries from the 2009 report. Of these 90 countries and territories, 10 were from the Pacific Island nations; due to low relative frequencies these countries were aggregated into a single Pacific Island Countries (PIC) case entity for analysis in the 2012 report. The subsequent aggregated count for the 2012 report is 80 cases. The total case load represents around three-quarters of the current world population and around half of all UN member states. The data collection was conducted using multiple languages and this has assisted with country level engagement for the 2012 report compared with previous reports. The analysis presented here should be interpreted within the confines of generalisation and based on best available validated data collated by the FIPEd team. A listing of contributing countries and territories is supplied in Annex 1.

Table 3.1 shows the respondent countries and territories categorised by WHO region, compared with the formal listing of all WHO member states, showing good proportionality between the FIP country and territory level responses and the global WHO member states.

Table 3.1. Respondent frequencies by WHO region

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3.2 Global overview: The pharmacy workforce and global comparisons

The case load (n=90 countries and territories) comprises descriptive data covering around 2.5 million pharmacists and 1.4 million pharmacy technicians (or equivalent). There are strong correlations with total pharmacists and technicians and country population (Figure 3.1, R2 = 0.36, p<0.0001 and R2 = 0.45, p<0.0001 respectively). In both cases, African countries tend to have data that shows a greater tendency for fewer pharmacists and support cadres per country population, a human resource for health situation also replicated in other health care professions (see also Figure 3.2).

A more standardised measure is to use the population density of pharmacists (presented as per 10,000 population), which varies considerably between countries and territories ranging from 0.02 (Somalia) to 25.07 (Malta), with the mean of the 82 countries and territories (sample mean) being 6.02 pharmacists/10,000 population. Figure 3.2 presents the global density of pharmacists per country or territory per 10,000 population. African nations by comparison, have significantly fewer pharmacists per capita.

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Figure 3.1. Pharmacists/Support cadres and country/territory

population (logarithmic scales)