In recent months, Thanzi la Onse has been working closely in collaboration with the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) to develop an open access community of practice to support health economics research capability and its use within policy in low- and middle-income settings.
In May 2020, we were delighted to officially launch the Global Health Economics Hub on the Global Health Network – the first ‘knowledge hub’ devoted to Global Health Economics – and the 50th hub to join the GHN’s international platform of health institutions, communities and experts.
Developed for anyone interested in the field of health economics, the hub offers a dedicated engagement and training platform for the global health economics community to share knowledge, collaborate and access resources for career development. Crucially, the hub also aims to help address a priority need identified during a ECSA-HC Community of Practice meeting earlier this year (read more here) – to support the local ECSA community in strengthening health economics capacity in the region.
As a result, a key feature – and driving force of the Hub – is the Training Resources page, which houses a range of teaching materials and talks on a variety of health economics topics such as: Health Economics Theory, Economic Evaluation Methods and Health Care Financing. Many of the training materials that populate the Hub have been developed specifically as part of TLO and ECSA-HC capability building efforts. In addition to the library’s current list of short course and lecture materials, further opportunities for insight are available through the hub’s open-access discussion forums and webinar lectures. To join in with current discussion, visit our community forums here.
Last month, we were delighted to mark the launch of the hub with a webinar, presented by Edward Kataika (Programme Director, ECSA), Paul Revill (Senior Researcher and TLO Director, University of York), and Pakwanja Twea (Economist, Malawi Ministry of Health and Population), on Health Benefit Package (HBP) design. The talk explores the role of HBPs within the health resource allocation decision-making process; the advantages they can offer with healthcare intervention prioritisation, and the new methods and ‘lessons learned’ from a recent stream of research in Malawi, on implementing HBPs effectively, to support national policy-makers. Listen back to the webinar here.
Registration to the Global Health Network is free – to find out more about the Network, or to get involved in our Hub’s discussion groups, you can register here. Have an idea or a suggestion for a health economics topic you would like to see covered on the Hub? Tell us about it by completing our feedback survey.
By: Steph Richards | May 2020
