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Did You Know?
Lower Congress registration fees is only one of the many benefits of IHEA membership. For example, IHEA members have the opportunity to join any of the IHEA Special Interest Groups to facilitate collegial engagement and networking with members across the world working in the same field. A key membership benefit is the opportunity to participate in the mentorship program, which aims to support early- and mid-career health economists in their professional development and personal wellbeing. The call for expressions of interest to participate in the next round of the mentoring program will be released soon.
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President’s Message
I am delighted to be taking on the role as President of IHEA. I’m not new to IHEA – the role of President is quite an extended one, with two (2) years as President-Elect and then a further two (2) at the end as Past President. This structure allows for lots of continuity, and I’d like to take this chance to thank Audrey Laporte for her contributions as President, and to welcome Virginia Wiseman as President-Elect.
The Congress in Cape Town last July reaffirmed what a talented and vibrant membership we have, and what we can achieve in advancing health economics research and policy when we work together.
My election statement back in 2021 outlined three (3) main priorities:
- Advance our equity, diversity and inclusion strategy
- Strengthen our relationships with regional health economics associations
- Find new ways to support early career researchers
The EDI programme monitoring group was very active in organising a series of reflections at the Cape Town Congress, including an EDI-focused plenary and a mini-plenary at which members of the group presented data about our membership and the makeup of Congress programmes. We will continue this work, ensuring that we use the data we collect to drive changes in our organisation and events that will enhance a sense of belonging across all our members.
In Cape Town, I met with colleagues from ASHEcon and EUHEA to discuss how we can best promote interaction among members and participation in each other’s events. I have also been representing IHEA on the board of the African Health Economics and Policy Association and will continue to look for ways for us to work together. The next Congress, in Calgary in July 2025, will provide a good opportunity for us to work with the Canadian association. I look forward to touching base with the other regional associations in the coming months. Related to this, the Executive Committee has been reviewing elements of board governance, in particular board composition. On the one hand, we want the board to represent the membership. On the other, we also want to expand membership in some parts of the world and having a board member to help promote the association and its activities is a good way to achieve this. The election of a new board member representing Southern, Central and Western Asia, Priya Bhagowalia from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, will be a way to strengthen our interactions in that region.
Finally, we have some funds available to support ECRs through a new IHEA Fellowship Scheme. We’ll be working out the details in the coming months and look forward to sharing them with you. I’ll also be catching up with the ECR SIG to hear their priorities for how IHEA can provide further support to ECRs.
I look forward to working with the board and management team over the coming years. Please do reach out if you’d like to share your thoughts and suggestions.
Kara Hanson
IHEA President
Results of IHEA Elections and Announcement of 2024 IHEA Board
Voting in the elections for the new President-Elect and a member-elected Board Director from Southern, Central and Western Asia closed late last week. About 36% of members voted in this election, which is comparable to the voting rate in the last election in 2021, and higher than voter turnout levels in pre-2021 elections, which ranged from less than 20% to 33% of members.
The result of the President-Elect vote was as follows:
Virginia Wiseman 57%
John Cawley 43%
Elected Director for Southern, Central and Western Asia Region:
Three (3) candidates stood for this Board Director position: Shiva Raj Adhikari, Priya Bhagowalia and Arnab Mukherji.
The successful candidate in this election, receiving the most votes, is Priya Bhagowalia.
The Board would like to thank all of those who were willing to stand for election to the Board, and all IHEA members who took the time to vote in the elections.
The full list of Board members for 2024 is as follows:
President: Kara Hanson, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Past-President: Audrey Laporte, University of Toronto
President-Elect: Virginia Wiseman, University of New South Wales
Treasurer: Rosalie Viney, University of Technology Sydney (term has ended; remaining until new Treasurer appointed)
Mehdi Ammi, Carleton University
John Ataguba, University of Manitoba
Priya Bhagowalia, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Josephine Borghi, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
James Buchanan, Queen Mary University of London
John Cawley, Cornell University
Sonja de New, Monash University
Claire de Oliveira, University of Toronto
Ama Fenny, University of Ghana
Dorte Gyrd-Hansen, University of Southern Denmark
Tiara Marthias, Universitas Gadjah Mada and University of Melbourne
Shiko Maruyama, Jinan University, Guangzhou
Paul Andres Rodriguez Lesmes, Universidad del Rosario
SIG Updates
Call for Resources: ThinkWell is Inviting Researchers to Submit Evidence on the Cost of Delivering Immunization Services
The Immunization Delivery Cost Catalogue (IDCC) is the most comprehensive, standardized global evidence on the cost of delivering vaccines, covering 317 unit costs from 68 studies published between 2005 and early 2019. The IDCC supports global and country immunization stakeholders in answering the question: “What are the unit costs of vaccine delivery across different low and middle-income countries and through various delivery strategies?”
To ensure the IDCC remains current and relevant, ThinkWell is currently updating the systematic review by adding cost evidence published since 2019. We welcome researchers to share with us any studies they have conducted on the cost of delivering immunization. Contributions do not need to have been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and can include reports, presentations or other kinds of resources as well, as long as they meet the following requirements:
- Include a unit cost of delivery of immunization services
- Be based on primary data from a low or middle income country
- In English, French, Spanish or Portuguese
- Published between 2019 and today
We welcome any submissions via immunizationeconomics@thinkwell.global by the 7th of February, 2024.
Econ-Omics SIG Update
Talks:
New format: We have initiated a new format of webinars (Econ-Omics Talks) in which we are inviting speakers to begin their talk with a short Q&A session facilitated by one of the SIG Conveners. The questions asked during this session are of a more personal nature (i.e., on topics such as career, impact, etc.). It is hoped that this new format will be particularly useful and interesting to ECRs. An example of this new format is provided below (November webinar with Professor Deborah Marshall).
- March webinar: Ka Keat Lim (King’s College London) and Michael Abbott (University of Aberdeen) presented their research on using genetics to guide pharmacotherapy for cardiovascular diseases (Ka Keat) and using genome sequencing strategies for diagnosing developmental delay in Scotland (Michael) during the Showcasing Early Career Researchers in the EconOmics SIG webinar.
- Econ-Omics Talks: Professor Deborah Marshall (University of Calgary) spoke on “Bringing the Patient Voice and Values into Precision Health Economics to Inform Patient-Centered Care and Decision Making”, and offered advice for ECRs working in this space.
- Quarterly webinars will resume this year.
Papers:
- IHEA Congress in Cape Town Survey & Paper: We held an in-person meeting for SIG members at the IHEA Congress in Cape Town where we discussed SIG priorities and our plans to engage with researchers in LMIC settings. We also organised a survey of our members and presented some initial top-level findings. We will disseminate the findings in full in 2024.
- Special Issues: James Buchanan (Queen Mary University of London), Deirdre Weymann (BC Cancer) and Ilias Goranitis (University of Melbourne) are coordinating a special issue within the journal of Applied Health Economics and Health Policy. The Value in Health journal is also coordinating a special issue on a variety of health economics topics including considerations related to rare disease.
LinkedIn:
- NEW private LinkedIn group: Econ-Omics SIG members are invited to request to join the group.
- NEW public LinkedIn page: Anyone with an interest in the health economics of genomics is invited to follow the page.
Join us:
We welcome anyone who is interested in the health economics of genomics to get in touch with us (iheagenomics@gmail.com). In particular, we welcome expressions of interest from people who are interested in:
- Presenting their ongoing work.
- Joining our SIG Conveners group in a role focused on organised conference sessions.
Upcoming Conferences with the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors SIG
- The Fourth Ireland Masterclass in Health Economics will take place at University College Cork, Ireland, on March 19-21, 2024. The organizers are Ciaran O’Neill (Queens University Belfast), John Mullahy (University of Wisconsin) and John Cawley (Cornell University). To register, please email ciaran.oneill@qub.ac.uk using MCIV in the subject line. Click here for more information, including the list of presenters.
- The 13th Workshop on the Economics of Risky Behavior will take place in Opatija, Croatia from July 4-6, 2024. The organizers are Erdal Tekin (School of Public Affairs at American University, USA), and Ana Bobinac, Igor Francetic, Lana Kovacevic (Croatian Health Economics Association). The deadline for paper submissions is March 3, 2024. Click here for more information.
The SIG also conducts the Virtual Seminar on the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors. Click here to sign up to receive seminar schedules and information.
To join the SIG on the Economics of Risky Health Behaviors, log into the IHEA website as a member, click on the box for Special Interest Groups, and then click “Join Group” next to the name of this SIG.
Regional News
Do you have news to share from your region for our IHEA newsletter? Our newsletter is disseminated to thousands of Health Economists around the world each month, and we are eager to share relevant news from all regions of the world.
Regional news items can be sent to ihea@healtheconomics.org by the 25th of each month.
Upcoming Events
Early Childhood Health Inequalities and In-Utero Health Interventions: Evidence from the Treatment of Gestational Diabetes
Date: February 5, 2024
Time: 10:30 AM-11:30 AM EST; 3:30 PM-4:30 PM UTC
Featuring speaker: Gabriella Conti, Professor, University College London
Stay tuned for more on upcoming IHEA webinars! You can view all 2024 events here.
