Health system performance
Theme Lead: Dr Victoria Serra-Sastre
Our research in this theme has a strong focus on programme evaluation and policy design, examining questions around productivity, efficiency, and quality of care in the NHS (and other health care systems) in primary and secondary care. Researchers at the CHEC also work in the area of healthcare workforce retention and job satisfaction, and the impact of staff turnover on patient outcomes. Additional research areas are centred around the policy levers available to influence the uptake of private health insurance in mixed systems, as well as the presence of risk selection and inequalities in non-competitive health care systems. Other research includes evaluation of primary care services, unmet need, prescribing behaviour and inequalities.
Determinants of health and health behaviours
Theme Lead: Dr Agne Suziedelyte
Among health economists there has traditionally been a large interest in understanding individual behaviours around specific risk factors that influence morbidity. CHEC researchers have examined questions around these behaviours related to obesity, diabetes, alcohol and media. Increasingly, research is broadening to understand the environmental factors that determine health and health disparities. Examples of that are the impact of pollution, working conditions and housing, as well as outcome-related risk perceptions for environmental outcomes in choices about changes in air quality are some of the factors that attracted large attention.
Health Technology Assessment
Theme Lead: Prof Emmanouil Mentzakis
CHEC has a solid interest in the economic evaluation of new health care technologies. Any health care system operates in a resource constraint context, and economic evaluation has become an established tool for optimal resource allocation and priority setting. The role of health technology assessment has become ever more relevant in the current environment where new health technologies are developed at a faster pace than before, and health systems are facing severe financing challenges. CHEC researchers lead economic evaluation models to assess new cancer treatments, AI-enabled technologies, medical devices and service delivery evaluation. The recent merger between City and St George’s, has expanded the possibilities for collaboration in the field of economic evaluation in healthcare technologies.
Global health
Theme Lead: to be confirmed
Research done by CHEC colleagues working in global health focuses on understanding the economic and social factors influencing health outcomes and healthcare systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Their research is largely rooted in field experiments and evaluation of interventions aimed to promote population health, address inequalities and exploring ways to reduce financial barriers to healthcare access. Projects in this stream also examine the impact of policies on maternal and child health, mental health and infectious diseases. Colleagues have carried out fieldwork collecting data and evaluating policy strategies in several countries such as Colombia, Malawi, Sierra-Leone, and Brazil.