Athanasios (Nassos) Gkekas
Health Economist
Profile
Biography
Nassos is a health economist, who joined the Department of Health Sciences in March 2023 while undertaking his PhD on the cost-effectiveness of Studies Within a Trial (SWATs) for improving recruitment and retention in randomised trials, which he completed in June 2024. Previously, Nassos worked as an intern at the WHO, where he explored the affordability of fluoride toothpaste around the globe. His findings led to the development of a new oral health indicator, now included in WHO Global Health Observatory. He has also been involved with an initiative led by WHO to recommend cost-effective, “best buy” oral health interventions for low- and middle-income countries, as part of a recent WHO global health action plan on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. At York Trials Unit, he performs economic evaluations alongside randomised trials and decision modelling, and he supports research related to SWATs.
His research interests include economic evaluations alongside trials, health economics of SWATs, global health economics and dental public health. He is currently involved in research projects across a wide range of disease and public health areas.
Qualifications:
- PhD Health Sciences, University of York
- MSc Quantitative Economics, University of Glasgow
- MSc Health Economics, University of York
- BSc Economics, University of York
Research
Overview
Nassos has an interest in the following:
- Studies Within a Trial (SWATs)
- Economic evaluation alongside trials
- Decision modelling
- Systematic reviews
- Global Oral Health
Projects
- IMPLEMENT SWATs: Using IMPLEMENTation science and Studies Within A Trial to improve evidence-informed participant recruitment and retention in randomised controlled trials
Research group(s)
Teaching
Other teaching
- Health Economics (2023-2024), Teaching Assistant
- Further Regression Analysis (2020 - 2021) (2021- 2022), Teaching Assistant
- Introduction to Regression Analysis (2021-2022), Teaching Assistant
External activities
Memberships
- WHO Best Buys for Oral Health Analytics Team