Page 19 - The Dental Workforce in Malaysia

Chapter 1

Introduction

The first chapter of this book will discuss the background context and
set out scenes of workforce issues for Malaysia, before it moves into the
subsequent literature section.

Overview

This study is part of a health services research (HSR) study involving a
multidisciplinary arena of scientific investigation. It focuses on the effects
of sociocultural, economic, organizational structures, health technologies
and personal behaviours on the accessibility, quality, and cost of health
care, and eventually, people’s health and well-being (Academy Health,
2000). This study primarily focuses on researching and examining a
human resource for health given that they are the backbone and have
always been associated with the overall performance of health systems
(Dubois et al., 2006).
In this light, this study used Malaysia in a case-study approach
for as a middle income country in the South-East Asia region that has
responded by increasing the production of dentists by opening 13 new
dental schools in the past decade. As a result, there are now concerns
about the long-term implications of these policies, particularly on how
the expensively trained workforce will be utilised (Malaysian Dental
Association, 2014, Malaysian Dental Council, 2014b, Oral Health
Division Malaysia, 2013a) in meeting the new needs and demands of
the Malaysian population. This is particularly due to the challenges
surrounding the use of this workforce during the period of compulsory
service in the public sector. Therefore, it is timely to examine the dental
workforce in Malaysia, as there is insufficient evidence of research on the
local dental workforce.