Module Aims
The module aims to analyse the principles of microeconomics and their application to health care, focusing in particular on the issues of efficiency and equity in health care. The module will also provide an overview of the basic principles of economic evaluation and decision-making to evaluate interventions in health care.
Module Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
- Apply key microeconomic concepts to the health care sector
- Explain demand and supply analysis and comment on the application of markets to health care
- Explain how health insurance markets operate
- Delineate different methods of financing health care, and discuss their pros and cons from an economics perspective
- Define different types of economic evaluation and identify the situations in which they can be used
- Know the basic concepts entailed in economic evaluation such as: costs, QALYs, cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-effectiveness plan
- Identify the components of an economic evaluation: definition of alternatives, choice of perspective, decision cost and consequences to be evaluated, modelling and decision making
- Perform a critical appraisal of any economic evaluation regarding the data collection, the analysis and the interpretation of the results.
Pre-requisites
No knowledge of health economics will be assumed. Familiarisation with the core text will help learning considerably.
Teaching Strategy
The teaching strategy is to teach an aspect of economic theory, show how this applies to the health care sector, and to then introduce empirical evidence demonstrating the theory in practice. The structure of each session may vary, but typically lectures will be used to deliver key concepts using these three steps. This will then usually be followed by a practical session to underpin knowledge and learning.
Assessment
The summative assessment for this module will be an individual 1000 word essay addressing a question from one topic from the module. There will be a prior formative component that will help prepare for the summative assessment, where small groups of students assigned to each question will make a group presentation and receive feedback.
Module Length
4 days