Economics for a Healthy Society

The Dutch (and international) health care system faces major challenges, such as increasing demand due to ageing populations, major staff shortages, widespread chronic diseases, emerging infectious diseases and pandemics. Climate change and other environmental challenges are expected to increase the demand for health care even further. These developments raise the question how we can ensure that health care remains accessible and affordable to all. Hence, trade-offs need to be made, and resources (e.g., time, money, materials) need to be allocated wisely to ensure a healthy society for current and future generations. This is exactly where the discipline of economics is relevant, because it studies how people, organizations, and societies distribute resources under conditions of scarcity. It includes health economic evaluations to compare policies and treatments on their efficiency (i.e., cost-effectiveness). For a healthy society, however, economics has more to offer than evaluation of formal health care alone. Economic approaches can also help promoting of healthy lifestyles, enabling healthy living environments and securing basic needs for wellbeing (e.g., socially, financially). Wider sectors contribute to this (e.g., public administration and policy, preventive services, youth care, social care, and at-home care), as well as informal care (e.g., through families, at home, in communities). For a healthy society, we may need to move beyond formal human health care, and also consider care for the planet (e.g., climate, nature, animals) as an entwined condition for human health.

In this course, you will learn how different economic perspectives, such as neoclassical economics, behavioral and urban economics, as well as heterodox economic perspectives, together can provide relevant insights for healthy societies. You will be introduced to key concepts from these perspectives and learn how to apply these for a healthy society. In addition, you will get acquainted with contemporary health care debates and you will practice with conducting a health economic evaluation.

• Explain the relevance of economics for a healthy society, from individual to systems level

• Apply various economic perspectives to understand contemporary challenges to a healthy society

• Analyse health care debates from an economic perspective

• Evaluate the efficiency of health care policies or treatments

• ? (30%) Assignment, performed in groups (N = 4). In case of an insufficient grade for the group assignment, an improved version can be handed in once, during the resit period. Consult the course coordinator for re-submission opportunities and deadlines. If the group assignment is not submitted at all or is again insufficient after re-submission, new group assignments have to be submitted during the next edition of the course.
• ? (30%) Essay including peer feedback and debate, performed in pairs (N = 2). In case of an insufficient grade for the essay, an improved version can be handed in once, during the resit period. Consult the course coordinator for re-submission opportunities and deadlines. If the essay is not submitted at all or is again insufficient after re-submission, a new essay has to be submitted during the next edition of the course.
• ? (40%)

• Annemans, L. (2018). *Gezondheidseconomie voor niet-economen. Principes, methoden en valkuilen van gezondheidseconomische evaluaties* (2^e^ editie). Pelckmans Pro. ISBN: 9789463371148.*Note:*An English version of the book is also available. Selected book chapters and journal articles, accessible through links in the course guide or available on Brightspace.