Dr Pelham Barton MA, PhD

• PhD in Operational Research, University of Birmingham, 1999
• Postgraduate diploma in Operational Research, University of Birmingham, 1995
• MA, University of Oxford, 1983 (converted from BA, Mathematics, 1979)

Pelham Barton read Mathematics at the Queen's College, Oxford from 1976 to 1979. After eleven years as a secondary school teacher, he came to Birmingham in 1994 as a taught postgraduate student in Operational Research, obtaining a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction. He was funded on a Postgraduate Teaching Assistantship to complete a PhD thesis entitled "Extending System Dynamics".

He joined the Health Economics Unit (then called the Health Economics Facility) in 1998 and has progressed to the rank of Reader. His own applied research work in a wide range of clinical areas has involved being part of a multi-disciplinary team. In such a team, Pelham's job is to decide on the appropriate type of decision model to use, construct the model using suitable software, and then present and explain the results obtained from the model.

As his career within the Health Economics Unit has developed, Pelham has taken on a role in overseeing the modelling work produced by others in the unit. He is often involved in discussions as to the appropriate type of model, even if he is not a member of the project team.

Teaching Programmes

• MSc Health Economics and Health Policy
• Public Health MPH/Diploma/Certificate

Pelham is interested in supervising doctoral research students in the following areas:

• Methodological issues to do with modelling for health economic evaluation
• Specific clinical questions where the choice of model type is a relevant issue

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Pelham directly, or 
for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk

 

RESEARCH THEMES

Applied research: model-based economic evaluation across a range of clinical areas

Methodological research in two main areas:

Issues to do with uncertainty, including: 

• Uncertainty in model construction

• Representing uncertainty in model results

Technical methods of modelling to improve accuracy and/or efficiency of model running, including: 

• Methods from numerical analysis

• Methods for dealing with large decision spaces

RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Health Technology Assessment

The main emphasis of Pelham's applied research work over the last 10 years has been model-based health technology assessment across a wide range of clinical areas, including chlamydia screening, rheumatoid arthritis, prevention and treatment of cardio-vascular disease.

• Member of the Scientific Advisory Group, Multiple Sclerosis Drugs Risk Sharing Scheme since 2006