iHEA News – February 2022

Call for Nominations for the 2022

Student Paper Prize Deadline: Monday, March 14, 2022

The International Health Economics Association (IHEA) is pleased to invite nominations for the Annual Student Paper Prize in Health Economics. Nominations should include a brief letter of nomination (250 words max) and a copy of the paper (preferably pdf).

Papers can be published or unpublished but must be in a comparable format to a published paper in the Journal of Health Economics or Health Economics, of a maximum length of 8,000 words. Self-nomination is acceptable. Papers should be in English. If a submitted paper has more than one author, the student contribution must be at least 75% overall and an accompanying letter must be signed by co-authors to support this, stating the nature of their contribution (conceptualization, analysis, writing etc.). A joint student paper with 50-50 contributions is acceptable. Previous winners are not eligible.

Papers will be reviewed by an International Committee chaired by Professor Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir. Please submit nominations, and address queries by email to: ta@hi.is

Call for proposals to host the 2025 iHEA World Congress

iHEA is interested in receiving expressions of interest from health economics research organizations to host the 2025 World Congress on Health Economics, for between 1,000 to 1,500 delegates. We particularly encourage proposals from regions of the world that have not yet hosted an iHEA congress. In addition, cost is a key consideration for potential delegates, so affordable travel and accommodation to the proposed host city are essential. Please find full details of the call here.

Update on iHEA Special Interest Groups

Equity Informative Economic Evaluation SIG

Equity Informative Economic Evaluation SIG networking sessions

We held two networking sessions on November 23rd, 2021. These were our first online networking sessions (outside of congress) and we are still working to get the structure just right to balance depth and breadth of conversations. We had attendees from a range of locations including, but not limited to, India, South Africa, Tunisia, Australia, and the UK. Thanks to all those who attended and were so willing to engage. It was great to learn about so many inspiring research projects and to share experiences and challenges.

Registration is now open for two upcoming networking sessions taking place this March:

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Networking Sessions: Equity Informative Economic Evaluation SIG

Description:

An informal session to talk to fellow health economists with an interest in equity. Participants will be allocated to small groups and asked to share their name, location, example of a project they are working on and a key challenge. This will be followed by general discussion.

The following two networking opportunities will be available on the same day. Please ensure you select your preferred participation time:

Health Systems’ Efficiency Special Interest Group (EFFSIG)

The Health Systems’ Efficiency Special Interest Group (EFFSIG) is inviting suggestions about the “Topics of webinar series – 2022”. Volunteering from interested members to be the faculty for the Webinar sessions of EFFSIG is always welcome. Please respond to pavitra.paul@mail.fr before 18.12.2021.

Dr. (med.) Pavitra PAUL, PhD. (health economics)

Co-Convenor: EFFSIG- iHEA

Immunization SIG

In partnership with local research institutes, ThinkWell is conducting costing studies of COVID-19 vaccine delivery to generate rapid economic evidence to support the sustainable roll-out of the vaccines. In each country, a bottom-up costing study will be conducted to estimate the cost of delivering COVID-19 vaccines through various delivery strategies, reaching different target populations, and using products with varying cold chain requirements. The studies will also map out the service delivery process and funding flows, and capture the source and use of different types of paid and volunteer health workers mobilized to deliver COVID-19 vaccines. Costing studies will be conducted in Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire and Mozambique, and 3-4 other countries – please get in touch if you have suggestions or there is interest in your country via the email address below. This project is supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Christina Banks – cbanks@thinkwell.global

Teaching Health Economics (THE) SIG

Teaching Health Economics (THE) SIG would like to remind everyone of our global repository of teaching materials.

Join the first in the Teaching Health Economics Virtual Workshop Series on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 at:

Eastern Time: 7am
GMT(West Africa): 11am
BST (UK): 12 noon
Central & Southern Africa & Western Europe: 1pm
EAT/East Africa: 2pm
India: 4:30pm
Indonesia: 6pm
China & AWST: 9pm
AEDT: 10pm

The workshop will be facilitated by Patricia Akweongo (University of Ghana), M. Femi Ayadi (University of Houston – Clear Lake) and Di McIntyre (University of Cape Town), and will provide an overview of curriculum development issues and establishing appropriate learning outcomes.  It will include brief presentations, discussion and a breakout room exercise. 

Virtual workshop series to strengthen capacity for health economics teaching

There is a clear need and demand for developing more health economics teaching programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This is known from discussions at the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) conference in 2019 (see THE SIG newsletter item here), research undertaken in Africa by Tommy Wilkinson and colleagues (published here) and a survey of iHEA members in 2020. There is also interest among early career researchers (ECRs) around the world in strengthening specific teaching skills.

The iHEA Board has been exploring strategies to strengthen capacity for both health economics teaching and research. The THE SIG is pleased to announce that it will be organizing a series of virtual workshops during 2022 and encourage all interested in developing new courses or enhancing their own teaching skills to participate. The topics for the workshop series include:

  • Curriculum development, including setting learning objectives, preparing course outlines etc. that fit the needs of the local context and specific target audience.
  • Developing reading lists that balance global and LMIC-relevant literature and provide a diversity of views (will include information on where LMIC academics can access literature that is not fully open access at no cost).
  • Different techniques to encourage active learning (how to move away from ‘standard lecture’ presentations).
  • Developing context-relevant case studies, exercises, simulations, etc.
  • Learner assessment techniques.
  • Effective supervision of research dissertations/theses.

These virtual workshops will sometimes include presentations, but will often involve panels of experienced academics providing tips and discussing issues with workshop participants and practical exercises in breakout rooms. They will be designed to encourage participation and to enable participants to develop their own curricula and teaching materials. Some workshops will last an hour while others will be scheduled for longer.

As soon as full details on each workshop are available, they will be posted on the THE SIG webpage and registrations will be opened on the upcoming webinar webpage. We are hoping to hold these workshops in late March, April, May and June, with the last two planned for late August and October. We may adjust the topics and schedule if new priorities are identified during the initial workshops; we aim to be responsive to participants’ needs.

We would like to ask for iHEA members’ assistance in identifying the best panelists for two of the workshops: Active learning techniques and Supervising research dissertations.

  • Is there a health economics teacher who you have come across (either when studying or a colleague you work with) who doesn’t just deliver one lecture after another but instead engages learners in discussion, arranges small group activities, uses case studies and simulations and other techniques that enhance learning?
  • Is there a health economics academic who you feel is a brilliant supervisor of research dissertations?

Please send their name and contact details, along with a brief explanation of why you think they are excellent in either of these areas, to  diane.mcintyre@healtheconomics.org. We are trying to ensure diversity in panelists, so won’t take up all of your suggestions, but we would value your suggestions.

We look forward to your participation in this exciting initiative.

Femi Ayadi, Patricia Akweongo and Di McIntyre (THE Capacity Strengthening Conveners)

Interested in the economics of risky health behaviors? Sign up for the upcoming VERB seminar series!

The Virtual Seminar on the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors (VERB) is a seminar series that has been taking place since September 2020. The seminar targets an international audience and  lines up a mix of early-career presentations and keynote lectures by senior researchers. K eynote lectures provide broad overviews of important research areas, which both help educate early-career scholars and help lower the barriers to entry for researchers seeking to enter that area. They are then recorded and made available as reference material for classes and consultation by PhD students and other researchers in the field. Past keynote speakers include Kitt Carpenter, John Cawley, Arantxa Colchero, Davide Dragone, Paul Gertler, Catherine Maclean, Christopher Ruhm, Manisha Shah, Jody Sindelar, Cass Sunstein, and Stephanie van Hinke. 

While countries are lifting travel restrictions, these seminars continue to be critical for expanding international dissemination and collaboration on the economics of risky health behaviors and for nurturing early-career scholars and other scholars worldwide.

During the northern hemisphere Spring 2022, the VERB seminar will take place on Mondays every other week at 3:30 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), from February 21 st to May 30th Scheduled speakers include Darwin Cortés (University of Rosario), Michael French (University of Miami), Meltem Daysal (University of Copenhagen), Markus Gehrsitz (University of Strathclyde), Michele Belot (Cornell University), Rosalie Pacula (University of Southern California), Erdal Tekin (American University), and Ludovica Giua (University of Cagliari).

You can check here to access the seminar schedule for the Spring 2022 semester.

You can check here to register for the seminar and receive email updates.

You can find the archive of speakers in past semesters here and the archive of keynote lectures here . 

The seminar is currently organized by Tinna Asgeirsdottir from Iceland, Ana Balsa from Uruguay, John Cawley from the U.S., and Hans van Kippersluis from the Netherlands and has an internationally diverse advisory board, with representation in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

iHEA Special Interest Groups (SIG) provide a platform for professional interaction betwe en iHEA Members. Organizing and participating in collegial activity related to an area of common interest offers tremendous professional growth opportunities and intellectual rewards. Consider joining a Special Interest Group Today!

The SIGs are envisioned as being ‘by iHEA members, for iHEA members’.