Newcastle University

Aims

The aims of this module are:

•to introduce students to economic principles
•to encourage students to develop an understanding of how economic principles can be applied in healthcare decision making with a particular focus on oncology and palliative care.
•to present students with the techniques needed to critically evaluate the health economist’s toolkit.
•to demonstrate how economic principles can be applied to real life problems faced by healthcare professionals and policymakers in the oncology and palliative care field.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module will start with an introduction to economic thinking and define key terms such as scarcity, opportunity cost, and priority setting that will be needed for subsequent topics. Followed by topics related to the economics of health care markets such as demand and supply of medicines, market failure, and equity. The module will also focus on economic evaluation. Economic evaluation will be defined and there will be discussion on why it is important. The different types of economic evaluation: cost-minimisation analysis, cost-effective analysis, cost-utility analysis, cost-consequence analysis and cost-benefit analysis will be covered.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Each week of the module will cover a different topic area. Each topic area will have one or two key study documents to read. After reading each document, there will be a set of questions for the student to consider. Thoughts and comments regarding these questions should be posted on the course blog (used for online discussion) to foster dialogue between students and to help with the consolidation of knowledge. Anything posted on the blog will not be formally assessed.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The assessment is intended to cover the breadth of the course and the 2000 words are divided across a number of short essay questions. The rationale for this form of assessment is to assess understanding of key economic concepts such as opportunity cost, discounting and methodological approaches such as cost-effective analysis. The essay questions allow students to demonstrate their applied knowledge of health economics.

There will be two formative assessment exercises on the economics of the health care market and on applying the principles of economic evaluation to test student understanding and provide preparation for the formal assessment. Responses to the formative assessment exercise should be posted on the blog and all students will receive personalised feedback on their answers.