CHE Researchers Meet with WHO Representatives to Discuss Latest Research Findings

Posted on 18 April 2016

Researchers from CHE attended a workshop held at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva last month, to discuss the results of recent research undertaken into economic evaluation methods. The workshop highlighted a number of shared topics of interest between the attendees which will be pursued and discussed in more detail at a follow-up event.

The workshop was co-organised by CHE as part of a larger engagement project funded through the University of York External Engagement Award grant, and was arranged by Alex Rollinger and Paul Revill.

It was attended by individuals from the WHO Departments of Health Systems Governance & Financing; Mental Health & Substance Abuse; and Immunization, Vaccines & Biologicals, in addition to representatives from the HIV Modelling Consortium (HIVMC) and the Global Fund.

Attendees engaged in high level discussions on contentious topics such as the methods for defining discount rates and tiered pricing, as well as the value and ethicacy of such strategies.

CHE researchers – Karl Claxton and Beth Woods – presented the findings from their recent work on the importance of reflecting opportunity costs and accounting for non-health constraints in resource allocation decision making, and discussed how these results may be used to support the WHO with its resource allocation guidance.

CHE’s Mark Sculpher presented on the alternative methods for conducting multi-criteria decision analysis, and Martin Chalkley led a session exploring the relevance of Industrial Organization literature to the global health context and how this perspective may be utilised to address some of the major issues currently affecting low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The workshop provided the attending CHE researchers with an insight into the challenges and constraints currently being faced by the WHO in its efforts to support LMICs with their resource allocation strategies. These include developing economic evaluation analysis tools which can be applied successfully across a number of countries of varying wealth and with differing healthcare system concerns.

There was also an opportunity for the CHE researchers in attendance to hear about the latest findings from the WHO-CHOICE full sectoral analyses, as well as the future research and LMIC engagement plans of the HIVMC, and discuss how these results and research activities may be applied in a real-world setting.

‌All attendees expressed interest in working closer with one another and continuing these discussions around economic evaluation methods and approaches in the future. CHE is currently organising a complementary workshop in June with policymakers and economists from the Malawian Ministry of Health, which will also be attended by WHO and HIVMC colleagues. This event will provide an opportunity to renew and expand the dialogue between the WHO, HIVMC and CHE established at last month’s workshop.

CHE would like to thank Jeremy Lauer and Melanie Bertram, from the Department of Health Systems Governance & Financing at the WHO, for all of their help with organising the workshop.

A summary of the Geneva workshop can be viewed here: CHE - WHO Geneva workshop - Summary Report (PDF , 373kb).