Health Economics and Decision Modelling

Course description

This course is about evaluating the efficiency, cost-effectiveness and clinical outcomes of healthcare resources – from new drugs and public health initiatives to diagnostic tools and screening programmes. It is designed to equip students with the practical tools to inform healthcare policy and decision-making and help people live healthier lives.

You can study economics concepts that are key to understanding the healthcare sector, and explore the process of conducting economic evaluations, modelling the cost-effectiveness of healthcare interventions, and carrying out health technology assessments. The course also covers medical statistics and evidence synthesis in the context of clinical trials, and how mathematical modelling and simulations inform healthcare decision making.

There is also training in research methods and, if you do the MSc programme, a three-month research project based on the models and healthcare problems you’ve studied. This gives you the opportunity to lead your own study in an external organisation, such as an academic unit, the NHS or in industry.