Executive Summary
This report presents the findings of health economics training assessment in the ECSAHealth community region. Data were collected through a survey and a scoping exercise. The findings show that only two out of nine countries in the ECSA-Health Community region do not offer any form of health economics training. Despite the majority of countries offering any form of health economics courses, member states felt that the current courses do not meet the expectation of many participants and there is no institution providing formal comprehensive postgraduate training in health economics in the ECSA-Health Community region. The findings also show that there is a high demand for health economics from policymakers/decision-makers and researchers/analysts in the ECSA-Health Community region.
However, efforts to increase health economics capacity is hindered by inadequate financial and technical capacity of training/research institutions, weak coordination between researchers and policy-makers on one hand and between national and international researchers and development partners on the other hand. As a way forward, national training/research institutions need to strengthen their technical capacity in provision of health economics courses, while member states need to support these national institutions with the needed financial resources and also create appropriate structures and career paths for the upcoming health economists in public institutions. Development partners need to support international training/research institutions with financial resources that could be used to help build health economics technical capacities and also provide direct financial support to member states for research and health economics analyses in the ECSA-Health Community region.
Published: October 2019