This course online will serve as an introduction to some of the concepts and principles in the economics of health and health care, and will provide an in-depth understanding of the tools usually used by health economists to address issues of health policy. Econometric techniques to evaluate public health interventions and policy will be used. Consideration is given to standard regression-based approaches, instrumental methods, interrupted time series. difference-in-differences and matching methods using statistical packages for health data.

Aimed at PhD, MPhil and MD students, researchers, NHS professionals, GPs, managers and CEOs interested in pursuing a high-stake career in the field, this programme provides an introduction to the central issues in health economics and health policy.

The course will cover

Health policy and economic principles and the distinction between health and health care.
Health care as an economic commodity.
How markets and insurance markets work, and how they can fail for health care and health insurance.
Incentive mechanisms and principal-agent relationships in health care.
Hospital competition and Diagnostic Related Group (DRG) payment schemes.
Economic evaluation.

The course will combine theory and applied methods using case studies and data analysis. The course is dedicated to understanding the software Stata and it use for health data. The course is 2 days long. On the morning of the 7th an introduction to Stata will be provided.