Coronavirus: Where Has All the Health Economics Gone?

Document Type : Perspective

Authors

1 Yunus Centre for Social Business & Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK

2 Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Abstract

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to unfold there is an untold number of trade-offs being made in every country around the globe. The experience in the United Kingdom and Canada to date has not seen much uptake of health economics methods. We provide some thoughts on how this could take place, specifically in three areas. Firstly, this can involve understanding the impact of lockdown policies on national productivity. Secondly, there is great importance in studying trade-offs with respect to enhancing health system capacity and the impact of the mix of private-public financing. Finally, there are key trade-offs that will continue to be made both in terms of access to testing and ventilators which would benefit greatly from economic appraisal. In short, health economics could – and we would argue most certainly should – play a much more prominent role in policy-making as it relates to the current as well as future pandemics.

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Main Subjects

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International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Volume 9, Issue 11
November 2020
Pages 466-468

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History

  • Receive Date: 08 May 2020
  • Revise Date: 20 June 2020
  • Accept Date: 20 June 2020
  • First Publish Date: 01 November 2020

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