Short course

Introduction to Health Economics

This course focusses on the fundamental principles of health economics. Topics explored will cover health and health care systems, economic evaluation methods, and how health economics connects with health policy, leading to greater insights of challenges being faced by the healthcare industry.

Start date
30 September - 4 October 2024
Duration
5 days
Mode
Face-to-face
Cost
Standard Fee = £1170, Industry Fee = £1599
Level
CPD

This course is designed to introduce the basic principles of health economics and equip you with the basic knowledge needed to interpret and appraise applied studies in health economics.

The course covers issues including health and health care systems, methods of economic evaluation, setting priorities using health economics and the interface between health economics and health policy.

This course content is taken directly from the Health Economics and Health Policy Postgraduate Degree Programme.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module you should be able to:

  • Demonstrate a knowledge of the roles and limitations of markets and incentives in health systems;
  • Distinguish between the different forms of economic evaluation and show an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches;
  • Critically review published economic evaluations of health technologies;
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the techniques used to measure both costs and benefits in the evaluation of health care.

Outline 

Monday: Economics and health: Issues in health economics; welfarism and extra-welfarism and demand for and production of health

Tuesday: Introduction to economic evaluation part I: Methods of economic evaluation; measuring costs; measuring outcomes and trial based economic evaluation.

Wednesday: Introduction to economic evaluation part II: Introduction to decision modelling; dealing with uncertainty and other issues and presenting and using economic evaluation.

Thursday: Health and healthcare organisation: markets, supply and demand; market failure in health care and program budgeting and marginal analysis

Friday: Priority setting: Practical applications; case studies and group feedback session

Attendance Required

1 block week of teaching

Academic Leads

Dr Philip Kinghorn - Senior Lecturer in Health Economics
Zainab Abdali - Research Fellow in Health Economics

Entry requirements

There are no specific entry requirements to take this module as a stand alone, non assessed course.

More information

For more information about registering for the course, please contact mdscpdenquiries@contacts.bham.ac.uk