MSc Health Economics students gain research experience through summer placements at CHE
Posted on Monday 7 September 2026
This summer, CHE welcomed five MSc Health Economics students to carry out research and apply the concepts and technical skills they developed during the taught component of their MSc to practical research projects.
The students and their projects were:
Komba Mbayoh researched Review of economic evidence on the role of community health workers in epidemic outbreak management in low- and middle-income countries, supervised by Tara Mangal and Megha Rao.
Reflecting on his time at CHE, Komba said:
"My time at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York, has truly been rewarding. Beyond the research, I valued the strong relationships I built with my supervisors and colleagues across CHE, who made the experience both intellectually enriching and genuinely enjoyable.
My project - a scoping review of the economic evidence on the role of community health workers in disease management across Sub-Saharan Africa - was a transformational experience. It deepened my understanding of review methodologies and sharpened my ability to synthesise and interpret evidence across a wide and varied literature.
I am especially grateful to my supervisors, Tara Mangal and Megha Rao, whose guidance and support were instrumental in shaping their work into what it became. My thanks also go to everyone at CHE for such a wonderful and welcoming period. This is an experience I will carry forward with me."
Joseph Wise explored Child and Adolescent Mental Health Trajectories in the UK: A Data-Driven Typology, supervised by Shuye Yu, Rowena Jacobs and Simon Walker. Joseph said about his experience:
"My summer at CHE has been extremely valuable. I have had the opportunity to explore new econometric methodologies, and deepen my knowledge in a rewarding subject area. It has been a fantastic opportunity to get to work with researchers at the forefront of Health Economics, and to present and discuss my progress throughout the project.
I have had brilliant support from my supervisors Shuye Yu, Simon Walker, and Rowena Jacobs, who have provided me with methodological advice and interesting discussion regarding the direction of my research.
My research into childhood mental health using latent classification has been a great opportunity to use the skills that I developed through the previous year studying at the University of York. Additionally, having access to such a large, information rich dataset thanks to CHE, has made my first experience conducting self led health economics research a pleasure. I hope to work with CHE again in the future."
Xintong Guo investigated How do economic evaluations of vaccines in low- and middle-income countries account for inequality?, supervised by Jessica Ochalek and Laura Bojke. Xintong said:
"I’ve really enjoyed my placement at CHE and working on a topic which was my first choice and is also closely related to what I hope to pursue in the future. CHE has provided a lot of useful resources, and my supervisor Jessica has always been very responsive and patient whenever I had questions or got stuck on difficult concepts.
I also really enjoyed the catch-up meetings with Jessica and Laura because they were both always actively engaged with what I was presenting, and their questions often gave me new ideas about how to understand the results and what to explore next. I’m really glad I was allocated to this placement. Working through the project has given me a much deeper understanding of the field, opened up new ideas for questions I would like to explore, and made me even more interested in continuing to work in this area in the future."
Matthew Almond researched Heterogeneous Impacts of Health Insurance on Labour Market Outcomes: Causal Machine Learning Evidence from Indonesia, supervised by Julia Hatamyar and Sumit Mazumdar. Matthew said:
"I’ve particularly enjoyed being able to get stuck into causal machine learning methods through my dissertation and explore the advantages they can offer for investigating heterogeneous treatment effects. My supervisor has been very supportive throughout the process, providing relevant papers, working examples and code to help me develop the methodology. I’ve also really appreciated the quick feedback on drafts and code changes, which has helped me refine the project as it has developed. Overall, the dissertation has been a valuable opportunity to build my applied research and health economics skills.
The placements provided students with an opportunity to put their learning into practice, develop their research skills and gain experience working alongside researchers at CHE."
Harshitha Manjunath researched Reporting transparency and methodological variations in model validation: A review of company submissions and independent External Assessment Group reports to support NICE technology appraisals, supervised by Anqian Zhou and Claire Rothery.