From leadership research to district action: Gender disparities in Australia’s specialist digital health workforce: a cross-sectional study on education and occupation

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Abstract Background Digital transformation is rapidly changing healthcare delivery, which is changing the functions and responsibilities of the health workforce. The specialist digital health workforce support the frontline clinical workforce through the management of health data and information systems. Gender disparity in this new configuration of the healthcare workforce can undermine organisational aims, workforce wellbeing, equitable care, population health, patient experience, and economic sustainability. Research aim The aim of this paper was to identify the nature of existing gender disparities and potential strategies for fostering gender equity in Australia’s specialist digital health workforce. Methods The 2023 Australian Specialist Digital Health Workforce Census incorporated gender survey questions from the Telstra Health Understanding Gender Diversity in Australia’s Digital Health Sector Special Report 2021-22 for the first time. These data were statistically analysed, examining if there was a difference between women and men in: (1) Education, (2) Professional development, (3) Occupation, and (4) Workforce intention. Results There were 857 valid responses, of which 595 (69.43%) respondents identified as woman. Women were less likely than men to have a formal digital health qualification. They were less likely to occupy higher paid roles, where both had formal qualifications. Women have fewer opportunities for mentoring and leadership training than men. Men indicated more senior roles than women, and more men were healthcare practitioners than women. More men than women aimed for senior management roles. Both valued work-life balance in employment. Barriers to career progression included age, financial constraints, outside of work responsibilities. Discussion Gender disparities are a workforce issue in the Australian digital health landscape. Women are underrepresented in digital health roles, particularly in technology-related roles and analytics. Women have fewer opportunities for leadership training, which is particularly notable as they occupy fewer leadership roles and fewer aspire to leadership roles. Equitable care should be considered one aspect of equity within the workforce. Policy interventions, mentorship and networking, educational reform, and changes in organisation culture are suggested strategies for balancing gender in the digital health specialist workforce. Keywords: Gender, Workforce, Digital health, Digital health workforce, Education, Professional development, Health services

Study methods

The objective of this paper is to identify existing gender disparities to inform potential strategies for fostering gender equity in Australia’s specialist digital health workforce, based on data from a national workforce census. The research question guiding this study is: What gender disparities exist in Australia’s specialist digital health workforce? The Specialist Digital Health Workforce Census (the Census) was developed from 2016–2018 through a rigorous Delphi process [9]. Many of the demographic items use the same meta-data items as the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Census [10], with the other questions informed by other workforce studies and the group of experts in the Delphi study. In April 2021, a study was undertaken prior to the 2021 census to validate the questions. In 2023, the census incorporated the gender survey questions from the Telstra Health Understanding Gender Diversity in Australia’s Digital Health Sector Special Report 2021-22 [11] and informed the 2024 report [12]. The Census has ethics approval from the University of Tasmania and RMIT University Human Research Ethics Committee (project number 26607). It captures informed consent at the start of the census, including consent for the data to be available as per the Data Management and Access Policy [13].

Limitations

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A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Salma Arabi; Kerryn Butler-Henderson; Kathleen Gray; Clair Sullivan; Karen Day. Gender disparities in Australia’s specialist digital health workforce: a cross-sectional study on education and occupation. BMC Health Services Research (2025-08-28). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-13274-8

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.