Title:	Health Economics Perspectives for Global Health Professionals
Keywords:	Planning and programming Health economics Financing
Country:	Spain
Institution:	Spain - Barcelona Institute for Global Health - University of Barcelona
Course coordinator:	Joan Tallada Dr. Elisa Sicuri
Date start:	2025-01-07
Date end:	2025-01-17
About duration and dates:	2021-01-05 to 2021-01-18 It includes two days of pre-readings.
Classification:	advanced optional
Mode of delivery:	Face to face
Course location: Barcelona Institute for Global Health – University of Barcelona School of Medicine and Health Sciences Campus Clínic August Pi i Sunyer Casanova, 143 08036 Barcelona TropEd representative: Núria Casamitjana (nuria.casamitjana@isglobal.org)
ECTS credit points:	3 ECTS credits
SIT: 75 hours SIT Hours of tutored projects and work (not face to face): 8h Reading and preparing for classes and case study exam: 35 h Hours of face to face study: 32h
Language:	English
Description: At the end of the course, students should be able to: 1. Apply key economic concepts to health and healthcare; 2. Critically assess the use of economic analysis applied to decision-making in health and healthcare markets, and 3. Critically assess the use of economic evaluation methods applied to healthcare interventions.
Assessment Procedures: The assessment procedure includes one exam and three assignments. Two of the assignments are group-based and one is individual. a) The exam will be close book and consist of 20 multiple-choice questions related to session contents applied to the case study presented during the course. The exam represents 55% of the grade. A 10 will be given when the 20 questions are answered correctly. Students need to have a minimum of 4 out of 10 in the exam in order to pass the course. b) Assignments: Students will be asked to complete 3 assignments (2 group-based, one individual) along the sessions. Successfully completion of each exercise will represent 15% of the grade. In total, this section represents 45% of the grade. No minimum grade is required for this second part. Note: Please see Annex 1 and 2 for examples of Assignment instructions and Assessment Rubric. Evaluation grades will be communicated within 15 days after the exam day. Students with a final weighted grade of
Content: Session 1: Introduction to the Economics of Health: Key concepts I Based on pre-session essential readings, students are expected to be familiar with the basic concepts of opportunity cost and production possibilities frontier. The first session will focus on using those concepts in exercises and case studies. Session 2: Key Concepts II Based on pre-session essential readings, students are expected to be familiar with the basic concepts of marginal cost and marginal utility, and effectiveness and efficiency to be used in the classroom. Students will be then asked to apply the concepts learnt from sessions I and II to an exercise to be developed at home. Session 3: Key concepts III The first part of the third session will be devoted to correct the homework exercise from sessions I and II. In the second part we will apply the concepts of supply and demand, and elasticity, that students are requested to get familiarized with in advance to the class. Sessions 4: Market forms & imperfections In the fourth session we will analyse market forms, the necessary conditions for perfect competition and its failures. Students are requested to understand the basic concepts in advance. Session 5 & 6: Market interventions In the sessions we will address interventions to correct market distortions and failures, taking drug price regulation and its alternatives as example. Students will be asked to present a previously prepared mini-essay on solutions to market failure in the drug market. Session 7 & 8: Economic evaluation of interventions in global health: rationale, methods and tools I a. Presentation of the case study b. The role of the economic evaluation of health and healthcare interventions and its foundations in economic theory b. Description and discussion of cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, cost-minimization and cost-benefit c. Costing interventions: key concepts Based on the case study and on other selected examples, this session will focus on the importance of the economic evaluation of interventions to complement clinical and epidemiological evidence. The main approaches used in economic evaluation will be presented and strengths and limits of every approach will be highlighted and discussed. This session will also discuss estimates of health intervention costs both from the health system and the household perspectives. Students will learn about the relevance of economic evaluation in health and healthcare and will be able to choose the best methods to be use across different contexts. Session 9: Economic evaluation of interventions in global health: rationale, methods and tools II a. Main models, parameters and sensitivity analysis for cost-effectiveness analysis b. Relevance and interpretation of probabilistic analysis c. Useful representation of results: tornado diagrams and acceptability curves During this session details of the cost-effectiveness analysis are presented. Students will learn how to interpret the main elements of a cost-effectiveness analysis. Session 10: Economic evaluation of interventions in global health: rationale, methods and tools III This session will have a particular focus on impact evaluation of the interventions, both in terms of health and beyond health. Students will learn which are the challenges in the estimate of effectiveness when using primary or secondary data sources. Sessions 11 & 12: Relevance, limitations of economic evaluations for decision-making in health interventions and needs to reinforce other types of economic analyses in global health: the example of infectious diseases elimination and eradication This session will illustrate the impact that economic evaluations have or may have on health policy decision making as reflected in the case study. Additional examples will be presented and the main issues for economic evaluations to be useful for policy decision making will be highlighted. The need to integrate cost-effectiveness with further types of analysis and the need for considering further types of economic analyses in global health will be discussed with a particular reference to infectious diseases elimination. Students will learn how to identify strengths and limitations of economic evaluations in order to be critical for health interventions, including evidence-informed policies. In addition, they will learn how to read critically articles reporting economics evaluations of global health interventions and to understand what kind of additional economic questions are relative to global health and what kind of additional economic analyses may be useful for decision making. Sessions 13 & 14: Costs and Cost-Effectiveness, in practice This session will be devoted to understand how costing and cost-effectiveness work in practice. Different models will be estimated during the class and discussed. Students will learn to identify which are the main factors affecting the cost-effectiveness of interventions across several scenarios: preventative vs. treatment interventions; communicable vs non-communicable disease interventions; low vs. high income countries interventions; interventions in the context of low and high prevalent diseases. Session 15: Assisted study for the exam Students will be asked to review individually in the classroom all the concepts and tools explained and used during the course as preparation for the exam. Teachers will be available to answer questions and provide clarifications. Session 16: Exam.
Methods: Class sessions combined theoretical explanations and analysis based on a case study. Each part of the case study will illustrate a problem that needs to be addressed by the students with the help of the teachers. At the end of each session teachers will summarize the theoretical explanations and practical tools that lie under each solution, as well as offering other examples to help understand and critically use them.
Prerequisites: tropEd candidates must accredit an English language level TOEFL test 550 or 213 computer-based or 79/80 internet-based or IELTS band 6.0 or equivalent.
Attendance: Maximum of 35 students. No limitations for tropEd students.
Selection: For tropEd students: First come, first served principle.
Fees: 525 € + University taxes (90 Euro approx.)
Scholarships: Not available
Major changes since initial accreditation: The course has not changed since it was first accredited except for 3 aspects: • The name has been modified from “Health Economics” to “Health Economics Perspectives for Global Health Professionals”. The name change was advised by the fact that the content of the course focuses on the use of Health Economics tools for GH Professionals to design, implement and evaluate their interventions and not on doing Health Economics research. The previous name was in that sense misleading for some prospective candidates. • The exam type has been changed from open-book, open-ended examination to close-book, multiple-choice examination. This is due to the fact that the open-ended examination led to frequent disagreements between students and coordinators about the grades. • Face-to-face sessions have been increased by 4 hours, from 28 to 32.
Student evaluation: The students have repeatedly assessed this course as overall positive, with an average score of 3.7 out of 5. Main areas of improvement suggested us the inclusion of more in-class exercises and examples, and more time to solve doubts and answer questions. Responding to this the course has been extended to one more day (4 more hours in class)
tropEd accreditation: Accredited in September 2015, Basel and reaccredited in online GA, June 2020. This accreditation is valid until June 2025.
Email Address:	nuria.casamitjana@isglobal.org
Date Of Record Creation:	2015-09-14 06:05:28 (W3C-DTF)
Date Of Record Release:	2015-09-14 10:30:52 (W3C-DTF)
Date Record Checked:	2019-08-14 (W3C-DTF)
Date Last Modified:	2024-06-11 10:21:59 (W3C-DTF)