PHE 6402 Assignment Public Health Issues and Economics
PHE 6402 Assignment Public Health Issues and Economics
The OECD and the European Observatory on Heath Systems and Policies joined forces to conduct a study on the economics of public health and health promotion. This study provides a first opportunity to comprehensively review the case for investment in actions to prevent key non-communicable diseases, accidents and injuries across different sectors, in a policy relevant fashion for the whole of the WHO European Region. Public health has been described as the organized activities of society to improve and protect the health of the population. Health economics applied to public health is the study of how we allocate our scarce societal resources to meet our public health wants and needs in the best way possible.
This book presents current thinking on health economics methodology and application to the evaluation of public health interventions (PHIs). It is for health economists working in higher education and public healthcare systems, challenged with the economic evaluation of PHIs, when they have been used to applying health economics and the methods of economic evaluation to narrower clinical interventions in primary or secondary care settings. This book will also be of interest to public health practitioners wanting to incorporate health economics into their daily work. This book covers the history of economics of public health and the economic rationale for government investment in prevention; principles of health economics including scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost; evidence synthesis; key methods of economic evaluation with accompanying case studies; economic modelling of public health interventions; return on investment analysis with national and international case studies; and application of programme budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) to the prioritization of PHIs.
It concludes with priorities for research in the field of public health economics, spanning an acknowledgement of the role played by the natural environment in promoting better health, through to precision public health, recognizing the role of genetics, the environment, and socioeconomic status in determining population health.
The study brings together contributions from leading authorities in the economics of public health, health promotion and disease prevention not only in Europe but at a global level. The study is primarily focused on interventions addressing behavioural risk factors, such as diet and physical activity, alcohol and tobacco consumption. But it also looks at risk factors for widespread mental health conditions, accidents and injuries, and aspects of the physical environment in which we live that may affect the health of adults and, especially, children.
Broader, cross-cutting, issues are also addressed in the study, such as the role of interventions on the social determinants of health, with an entire chapter dedicated to the role of education and educational interventions. The study looks at the equity implications of public health actions. If the uptake of a public health intervention is higher in more affluent groups, one unintended consequence of investment in that programme may be to widen health inequalities. The study explores how equity concerns have been addressed in economic evaluations of public health interventions and looks at ways in which such concerns might be routinely incorporated into economic evaluations in this area.
The study places a special emphasis on the context in which interventions are to be implemented and how this impacts on cost effectiveness, for instance, looking at issues in respect of workforce capacity and skills, or the role of key stakeholders in policy design and implementation, or, in the case of behaviour modifying interventions, looking at factors that may encourage uptake and continued use where appropriate.