Workforce Requirements for Skin Cancer and Related Skin Tumors Continue to Increase: Clinicians Expend an Average of 1,740 Full-Time Effort Years Annually.

BACKGROUND

With an aging population, estimating workforce requirements for management of common conditions such as skin cancer will be necessary to meet the health care needs of the American people.

OBJECTIVE

The authors aimed to estimate the workforce requirements for managing skin cancer and other skin tumors.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

The authors conducted a population-based, cross-sectional analysis using data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey between the years 2007 and 2016, the most recent years available. The significance threshold was set at a p-value <.05.

RESULTS

The full-time effort of 1,740 (95% confidence interval: 1,340-2,220) clinicians is required to care for skin cancer and other skin tumors each year. The full-time effort years necessary for management of melanoma (p = .006), keratinocytic carcinoma (p < .0001), actinic keratosis (p < .0001), and all skin cancers and tumors (p < .0001) were significantly increasing from 2007 to 2016.

CONCLUSION

Clinicians expend a significant amount of time managing skin cancer and other skin tumors, and the time required for management increased over the study period. These workforce requirement trends can likely be attributed to increased prevalence and incidence rates of cutaneous malignancy secondary to an aging population and increased whole-body skin examinations.