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Evaluating health and social care interventions at the extremes of the life-course

Thursday 6 December 2018, 2.00PM to 3.15pm

Speaker(s): Professor Joanna Coast, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol

Abstract: The use of public values in health care decision making is now well established in organisations such as the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England, and ZorgInstituut Nederland in the Netherlands. These values tend to focus on measured changes in health status. Where the interventions being evaluated draw on both health and social care, however, existing measures that capture only health changes may result in poor decisions. Newer ‘capability’ measures have concentrated on wellbeing, described in terms of what a person is able to do and be in life. These measures have been generated by talking to people at different stages of life about what is important to them in their lives, and have the advantage that they capture a broader assessment of wellbeing, that could be influenced by both health care interventions and social care interventions.   

The start and end of life, however, cause particular difficulties for evaluation. These extremes of the life-course are characterised not just by potentially different values in terms of ‘what a person is able to do and be in life’, but also by a greater need for, and reliance upon, support from others. Both of these factors influence what needs to be measured in evaluation. This lecture focuses on the challenges of measuring and valuing capability at either end of the life-course and incorporating these values into a decision making framework that can be used by an organisation such as NICE. The lecture begins by presenting and discussing a programme of work on capability measurement at end of life. This research programme has generated and valued new measures, assessed whether these measures can be used in practice, and developed a framework for end of life decision making. The lecture then shifts towards considering the challenges inherent in measuring capability at the start of life, in preparation for a new programme of research to develop capability measures for children. 

Location: The Professor Alan Maynard Auditorium A/RC/014

Who to contact

For more information on these seminars, contact:

Adrian Villasenor
Adrian Villasenor-Lopez
Dacheng Huo
Dacheng Huo

If you are not a member of University of York staff and are interested in attending the seminar, please contact Adrian Villasenor-Lopez or Dacheng Huo so that we can ensure we have sufficient space

CHE Seminar Programme

  • Monday 21 January
    Professor Rachel Baker, Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health
  • Thursday 7 February
    Professor Philip Clarke, The Universities of Melbourne and Oxford
  • Thursday 7 March
    Professor Sonia Bhalhotra, University of Essex 
  • Thursday 4 April 
    Eugenio Zucchelli, Lancaster University
  • Monday 13 May
    Davide Rasella, Fiocruz Brazil
  • Thursday 4 July
    Stephanie von Hinke Kessler Scholder, Bristol University
  • Thursday 5 September
    Jose-Luis Fernandez, LSE 
  • Thursday 3 October
    Soren Rud Kristensen, Imperial
  • Thursday 7 November
    Linda Davies, Manchester University
  • Wednesday 5 December
    Mandy Ryan, HERU, University of Aberdeen