In 2019, the Methods of Benefit Valuation team in HERU delivered our ‘Using Discrete Choice Experiments in Health Economics’ course twice. The course teaches one of the most commonly used preference elicitation tools: the Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE). In 2019, we held our annual course in Aberdeen, and also held a course in Banff, Canada in collaboration with University of Calgary’s Professor Deborah Marshall, Dr Gillian Currie and Dr Karen MacDonald.
Group photo from the Aberdeen DCE course in November 2019.
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The number of people living with cancer in Scotland is almost quarter of a million - and growing. Many cancer survivors feel they are not getting the help they need; staff shortages in the National Health Service (NHS) could be contributing to this situation.
The Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Support has described rising numbers of people living with cancer amid staffing shortages and unprecedented pressures on NHS and social care professionals, and calls this a ‘perfect storm’.
Macmillan have called for a cancer workforce that is ‘fit for purpose’. They explain that as well as good treatments, many people living…
We know surprisingly little about how effective or cost-effective dental interventions are. For example, in the UK each year people have over 15 million scale and polish treatments on the NHS. Yet, there is no strong evidence that scale and polish prevents poor dental health or that scale and polish is good value for money. This means that NHS resources may be wasted. In HERU, we have worked with researchers from across the UK to increase the evidence in this area. We are carrying out several economic evaluations of dental treatments and services. These studies are researching:
how often we…Falls and older people
Falls are a common and serious occurrence for everyone and are more common in older people. One in three community dwelling people aged 65 years or over fall at least once per year. Falls can lead to injury, fractures, disability, poorer quality of life, loss of confidence and a greater reliance on family and friends for everyday support. They can lead to fractures which can have a large impact on the NHS. For example, the current estimated cost of hip fracture to English health and social care services is £4.4 billion annually and is projected to…
Each year HERU hosts up to three paid Interns in the Unit to build health economics capacity and contribute to our research projects. We sat down with this year’s interns, Jeanne Armand (left) Cameron Owens (middle) and Jennifer Martin (right), to talk about their time at HERU.
Jeanne is a 3rd year Economics student at University of Dundee, Cameron is a 3rd year Economics student at University of Aberdeen and Jeni is a 2nd year Economics student at University of Kent.
HERU: Why did you apply for an…