Welcome to Health Economics!

This module addresses public policies and best practices in areas such as development, demography, epidemiology, household finance and behavior, cost/effectiveness of treatments, financing modes, health system organization, and comparative country studies. By the end of this course, students will be able to understand how healthcare is organized and financed, how healthcare consumers make choices, how different treatments and services can be evaluated and prioritized, and how health systems can best cope with challenges.

The course is structured into five 2-week-long topics (Topics 1 to 5). For each topic, we will direct you to the reading resources that have been prepared to help meet the course competencies. You will read those resources, reflect on them, and complete the corresponding activities (e.g., peer activities, discussion forums) for each 2-week topic. 

You will also find quizzes at the end of each topic to allow you to self-assess your learning (completion of all quizzes is required to be eligible to submit the final assignment). It is essential that you read all required resources and participate in all activities to achieve the competencies outlined. At the end of the course, you will be required to complete a final assignment to test the knowledge and skills you have accumulated throughout the course.

There are five topics to complete, which include:

• An Introduction to Health Economics
• Health and Socio-Economic Development
• Healthcare Financing
• Introduction to Economic Evaluation
• Health System Efficiency and National Health Priorities 
  
  

This course is equivalent to 3 US credit hours. Participants must read all materials and complete all activities to meet all the academic requirements. The learning outcomes are intended to direct your course of study, and we encourage you to review them carefully.

We hope that you will enjoy studying this module!

Headline Competence (learning outcome):

• Define health economics and the key vocabulary used in this discipline.
• Analyze the applicability of economic principles to health and healthcare.
• Critically evaluate the distinctive properties of healthcare that differentiate it from other goods and services.
• Describe how health economics can help decide how health care resources should be allocated.

Assessment Criteria: 

• Understand what health economics is and what it is used for. 
• Understand the key vocabulary used in health economics.
• Relate the following issues to the setting in which you work:
• Relevance of health economics to health care, the expansion of the health care sector.                                      
• Does economics apply to health and health care?                                                                                        
• Is health care different from other markets?                                                                                                 
• How does health economics help you think about how health care resources should be allocated? 
• What objectives should we set in determining priorities for allocation?

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Headline Competence (learning outcome): 

• Define and describe the reciprocal relationship between health and economic development, illustrating how each influences the other.
• Analyze and explain the impact of national health expenditure on population health outcomes.
• Analyze and explain the relationship between household-level health expenditure and individual health outcomes.
• Critically analyze and evaluate the disparities in health outcomes between countries, with a specific focus on understanding the differences between Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and High-Income Countries (HICs). This includes identifying key factors contributing to these disparities, such as socioeconomic determinants, access to healthcare, infrastructure, and public health policies.
• Discuss different categories of inequalities such as income, education, gender, or race and their potential effects on health status and access to healthcare.
• Investigate and detail the reasons for disparities in health and access to healthcare amongst different income groups.

Assessment Criteria: 

• Describe the ways that health affects economic development, and how development and socio-economic factors affect health.
• Show understanding of the evidence that spending on health (national and household-level) is related to health outcomes, and why some poor countries have good health indicators and vice-versa.
• Discuss different kinds of inequalities and how they can affect health status and access to healthcare.

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Headline Competence (learning outcome): 

• Describe the 3 core functions of health financing.
• Identify and describe the basic principles and rationales for the main methods of health financing including taxation, social insurance, and out-of-pocket payments.
• Analyze the challenges associated with these major methods of revenue raising for health financing.
• Describe the main methods of payment of healthcare providers and analyse their strengths and weaknesses.
• Evaluate the track record of these financing methods and provider payment mechanisms in terms of efficiency and equity
• Understand the principle of universal health coverage and its significance in promoting equitable access to healthcare services.
• Analyze the major challenges to achieving universal healthcare coverage and propose potential solutions to overcome these obstacles.
• Describe recent healthcare reform attempts such as pay-for-performance, health equity funds, and community-based health insurance, and evaluate their potential impact on healthcare access and quality.
• Assess the evolving roles of donors in healthcare financing and discuss their implications for healthcare access and quality in LMICs (Analysis).

Assessment Criteria: 

• What are the basic principles and rationale for the main methods of health financing (taxation, social insurance, OOP), and what challenges are associated with them?
• Analyse the different purchasing of services methods (the payment or allocation of resources to health service providers and health workers: capitation, fee-for-service, pay for performance)
• What is the track record of various financing methods AND provider payment mechanisms in your country, and in other LMICs? What are the pros and cons of each method in terms of efficiency and equity?

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Headline Competence (learning outcome): 

• Define the concepts of costs, effectiveness, and utility in the context of economic evaluation.
• Identify and describe commonly used measures for assessing costs, such as cost-effectiveness ratios, cost-utility ratios, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios.
• Describe the 4 main study designs used for economic evaluations (cost minimization study, cost-effectiveness study, cost-utility study, cost-benefit study), and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.
• Conduct a critical appraisal of an economic evaluation article, evaluating its study design, methods, data sources, and analysis techniques.
• Assess the validity, reliability, and generalizability of the results presented in economic evaluation studies.
• Understand how these results can be effectively utilized to inform decisions on resource allocations for health financing.
• Analyze and interpret economic evaluation results in the context of available data and resources in the student's own country or setting.

Assessment Criteria: 

• Describe the way that costs, effectiveness, and utility are measured.
• Understand the principles of the 4 main study designs used for economic evaluations (cost minimization study, cost-effectiveness study, cost-utility study, cost-benefit study).
• Conduct a critical appraisal of an economic evaluation article, reflecting on the application of the results to data that are available in your country's setting.

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Headline Competence (learning outcome): 

• Define the concept of a health system and articulate how it interacts with and impacts other sectors.
• Analyze the impact of GDP, health financing, income distribution, and efficient resource allocation on a community's overall health status.
• Identify key indicators of health and national/international targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals, and analyze the constraints and challenges in achieving these targets.
• Understand and explain the measures of a well-performing health system, including efficiency and equity (Comprehension).
• Develop strategies to address the identified issues and enhance the health system's performance, considering the unique socio-economic and health contexts of their country (Synthesis).

Assessment Criteria: 

• Define the nature of a health system and how it relates to other sectors.
• Bring together the competencies of previous modules to recognize the influence of GDP, financing, income distribution, and efficient allocation of resources on the overall health of the community.
• Identify indicators of health and targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals, and consider the constraints in reaching these goals and targets.
• Understand measures of a well-performing health system, such as efficiency and equity, and to assess the quality of these measures in your own country.

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