Professional/Short course Health Economics

Content

This level 7 (Masters level) course syllabus will typically cover:

• The ethical perspective of health economics and its relationship to the allocation and distribution of resources in health and social care.
• The importance of context in health and social care interventions, whether in hospital or the community, the nature of the relationship between health interventions and outcomes and the factors influencing behaviour change.
• Examination of the welfarist, extra welfarist and capability models within health economics and understand the alternative approaches to assessing cost effectiveness.
• Inequalities in the distribution of health and health care - social and physical environments, household factors and individual motivation; the Marmot Review.
• Trade-off between equity and efficiency in resource allocation for primary prevention, health systems and health policy - legislation, regulation, nudging population intervention and targeted intervention to improve population health.
• The nature of the evidence base for economic analysis of healthcare and public health programmes.
• Measures of economic efficiency in the allocation of resources in healthcare: cost-benefit ratios, cost per QALY, ICER, Social Return on Investment.
• Commissioning health and social care, public health programmes and services. Priority setting, rationing and decision making in health and social care.
• Spatial planning and health: effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of including health in built environment planning.

Learning and Teaching

This module has 150 allocated hours and a variety of learning approaches will be used to support distance learning. You will be required to engage with online materials and discussion forums and to support this with essential reading. Typically, up to 8 hours of virtual contact will be scheduled for group discussion and tutor support; preparation will be required for virtual scheduled sessions. We expect that 8 hours will be scheduled learning and 142 hours will be independent learning which includes assessment preparation and completion time.

There will be opportunities for interactive learning with the module team and other students through discussion boards and real-time communication via Blackboard Collaborate.

Scheduled learning includes; tutorials, project supervision, scheduled group discussions.
Independent learning includes; hours engaged with online activities, essential reading, case study preparation, assignment preparation and completion etc.

Study time

This module will be delivered as a distance learning module. The majority of the module is based on self-directed independent learning using a range of interactive, online resources, directed reading, independent reading and discussion forums.

Contact hours are typically up to 8 and will be scheduled during the module for online group discussion and tutor support throughout the module.

Assessment

A written project of 3,000 words, which involves the critical review of one of five published economic evaluations of interventions in rehabilitation. You are required to critically appraise of one of the five papers selected by the module leader and construct a generic argument to support the problems of allocating resources for health improvement in real life settings.