health Economics Training

Overview

Health economics has the potential to contribute to a number of areas relevant to public health decision making, including:

Policy analysis — Determine the economic impact of policies or programs,
Developing programs, policies, or interventions — Identify cost effective policies and programs,
Evaluating programs, policies, or interventions — Determine the Return on Investment from policies and programs,
Routine data collection/reporting — Identify data that can be routinely collected and reported that informs the economic impact of health conditions on the population, and
Prioritization — Assist in making resource allocation decisions.

If you are interested in gaining a basic understanding of health economics as it applies to decision making in Public Health agencies (“Fundamental Awareness” level), this course will provide training to enhance awareness of health economics principles and strategies for improving decision making. This includes ways to estimate the cost of a program, policy, or interventions, how to assess benefits for use in cost effectiveness or Return on Investment (ROI) analysis and approaches to prioritizing allocation of resources.

course description

If you are interested in gaining a basic understanding of health economics as it applies to decision making in Public Health agencies(“Fundamental Awareness” level), this course will provide training to enhance awareness of health economics principles and strategies for improving decision making. This includes ways to estimate the cost of a program, policy, or interventions, how to assess benefits for use in cost effectiveness or Return on Investment (ROI) analysis and approaches to prioritizing allocation of resources.

Module 1
Overview of the use of health economics in Public Health Decision Making
Module 2
Estimating the economic cost of a program
Module 3
Measuring and quantifying health benefits
Cost effectiveness analysis
Module 4
Return on Investment analysis
Prioritization methods to promote public health decision making

No prior knowledge of economics or health economics is necessary. The course will be aimed at those with an interest in understanding the applications of health economics to public health agencies.

Goals for Training

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

Understand how health economics can be used to enhance public health;
Understand what is meant by ‘resource-based costing’ and how to apply it to work done in public health agencies,
Understand ways to measure the benefits from programs that can be used in economic studies such as cost effectiveness and return on investment analysis,
Understand how to read and interpret cost effectiveness on public health,
Understand what is meant by a ‘return on investment analysis ’in public health,
Be familiar with the ways that health economic information can be used to make decisions and identify how priority areas for public health interventions.

format

There will be four modules. The modules will be made available every two weeks, and you can complete them at your leisure. However, to achieve the Fundamental Awareness Certificate, all modules must be viewed, and the assessments (see below) completed.

Module 1 — Overview of behavioral economics in public health

Module 2 — Methods for measuring costs and resource use

Module 3 — Methods for assessing the benefits and interpreting the cost effectiveness literature

Module 4 — Return on Investment and prioritization approaches for Public Health

resources

In addition to the asynchronous presentations, you will also be provided with:

A copy of the slides presented during each module,
Access to a discussion board where we will post additional information and questions pertaining to the material,
Access to a weekly discussion hour when you can speak with one of our training staff.
Additional material that you can read if you would like to know more about the topic. No additional reading is necessary for completion of the course; it is provided for those who would like to know more about the topics being discussed.

assessment

To successfully complete the course, you will be asked to compete a brief test after viewing each module. Each assessment will be based on the material in that module.

Time to complete the quiz: The modules are designed to be completed sequentially. The module will become available on a Wednesday, and the next module will be available one week later. Thus, we recommend that you complete the quiz before starting the next module.
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‍Number of times you can take a quiz: You can take the quiz up to three times. If you do not successfully complete the module after the first two attempts, we suggest you make an appointment with one of our Teaching Assistants. Our Teaching Assistant can go through the material with you and answer any questions that you might have.

Receiving Your Certificate in Health Economics for Public Health

After viewing and completing the quizzes for all the modules, you will receive a certificate of completion.