Unit information: Public Health Economics in 2020/21

Unit name	Public Health Economics
Unit code	SPOLM0060
Credit points	15
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Russ Jago
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School for Policy Studies
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Description including Unit Aims

The unit content includes:

• The process of economic evaluation for public health programme evaluation.
• Critique techniques of economic evaluation as part of the evidence base for public health.
• Costs and outcomes in economic evaluation.
• Critique of economic evaluation studies.

Whilst studying Public Health Economics masters level module, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the principles of health economics as a basis for gathering and interpreting evidence.
• Demonstrate a systematic understanding and critical awareness of the nature of economic evidence currently used as a basis for public health policy and practice.
• Reflect upon and demonstrate a critical understanding of utilitarianism as the ethical basis of economics as a discipline.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Learning outcomes:

At the end of this module students should be able to:-

1. Understand the ethical basis of the way of thinking and the tools and techniques of economic approaches and the limitations of economic evidence, as a basis for formulating policy and public health guidance.
2. Understand and assess alternative theoretical approaches in health economic practice.
3. Critically examine the trade-off between efficiency and equity in the organisation of international health systems and the provision of public health programmes.
4. Reflect upon and critically appraise the validity and reliability of economic evidence for primary prevention interventions in the built environment where environmental factors are important to behaviour change.
5. Critically examine approaches to estimating economic efficiency where social capital and community assets are important.
6. Reflect upon the factors that allow inequalities in the distribution of health and health care to persist and critically examine prioritisation and commissioning of public health interventions in communities.
7. Importantly, understand the relevance of social value when assessing cost-effectiveness.

Teaching Information

Organisation of Experience. Students will participate in interactive lectures and workshops together providing a cohort with different experiences to draw on, so a key learning strategy will be to enable students to learn from each other about key aspects of public health economics.

Students’ can keep a reflective diary of observations for each session connected with scheduled and independent learning through the VLE. It is expected that for each hour spent in workshops students will spend two hours in independent learning for their project assignment. All sessions will be recorded using Panopto technology to enable students accessibility to module at all times through the duration of the module.

Scheduled learning variety of interactive lectures and workshops.
Independent learning includes reflective diary of sessions, formative independent blended learning using reading, support materials, discussion boards and tasks in a VLE.

Assessment Information

Write a critical appraisal of the economic evaluation of the complex public health intervention you have chosen using a critical appraisal checklist for economic evaluation. (100% of marks). The word limit is 3,000. ILOs 1-7.

Reading and References

Barendregt, J. (2006) Economics and Public Health: An Arranged Marriage. European Journal of Public Health. 17(2) p.124.

Bevan, G. Helderman, J. and Wilsford, D. (2010) Changing Choices in Healthcare: Implications for Equity, Efficiency and Cost. Health Economics Policy and Law, 5(3), pp. 251-267.

Chalkidou, K., Culyer, A., Naidoo, B. and Littlejohns, P. (2008) Cost-effective Public Health Guidance: Asking Questions from the Decision-maker’s Viewpoint. Health Economics. 17(3) pp. 441-448.

Kimberlee, R. (2015) What is social prescribing? Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, Volume 2, No1.

Lorgelly, P., Lawson, K., Fenwick, E., Briggs, A. (2010) Outcome Measures in Economic Evaluations of Public Health Interventions: A Role for the Capacity Approach? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 7(5) pp.2274-2289.

Mooney, G. (2012) The Health of Nations: Towards a New Political Economy [online] London: Zedbooks. [Accessed 8 March 2013].