Abstract
Purpose: Rural communities experience allied health workforce shortages that detrimentally impact health care access and outcomes. Allied health student exposure to rural practice is a key strategy to influence rural practice uptake in Australia. Yet, these placements can be short in duration and undertaken across multiple speciality areas contributing to fragmented learning, challenges in translating theory to practice in rural contexts, and host site fatigue. We aimed to review placement standards and key rural and metropolitan university stakeholder perspectives of placements to inform the co-design of a rural longitudinal placement to address the challenges described. Method: This qualitative study was undertaken in two stages: Stage 1: document analysis to identify standard requirements for allied health placements and semi-structured interviews with rural and university stakeholders to identify benefits, concerns, barriers and facilitators to rural placements and placement duration preferences, and Stage 2: the delivery of a co-design workshop to inform the development of a longitudinal allied health placement model. This paper discusses findings from Stage 1. Stage 2 findings will be described in a subsequent publication. Results: Document analysis identified that Australian standards do not mandate allied health placement durations but do mandate student experiences across contexts, populations, and placement types; inter-professional experiences; support for student development of cultural responsiveness; and supervision and assessment, though these differed across disciplines. Findings from semi-structured interviews identified overwhelming support amongst rural participants for longitudinal placements. However, there was resistance to this concept from university participants. Rural participants were also positive about student learning and direct care benefits associated with longitudinal placements. Overall, there was no clear direction provided by participants on how longitudinal placements might be developed or implemented. Findings were drawn on to inform subsequent co-design workshops. Conclusion: The future development of allied health placements must be informed by, and reflect, Australian standards and the evidence, whilst bridging the divide that exists between rural and metropolitan university stakeholder requirements and expectations. Placement innovations are vital, including longitudinal placements, if we are to address critical rural allied health workforce shortages experienced and respond to pressing rural workforce, health system, and public health imperatives.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the frank contributions made by all participants in this study and the shared commitment to the education of future Allied Health Professionals. The Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health is funded through the Australian Commonwealth Governments Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program.
Recommended Citation
Jones DM, Hill A, Haddadan G, McAllister L. Can We Bridge the Divide Between Community and Metropolitan University Stakeholders in the Development of Longitudinal Allied Health Placements in Rural Australia?. The Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice. 2026 Jun 01;24(2), Article 4.
