Equitable funding for health care: integrating social outcomes. This project will develop an innovative method for decision makers to achieve more equitable allocation of scarce health care resources. Health programs and treatments affect not just health (survival & health related quality of life) but also broader aspects of well-being (e.g. dignity, autonomy, safety). Our current methods for evaluating value for money in health do not capture these aspects. The project will provide benefit by a ....Equitable funding for health care: integrating social outcomes. This project will develop an innovative method for decision makers to achieve more equitable allocation of scarce health care resources. Health programs and treatments affect not just health (survival & health related quality of life) but also broader aspects of well-being (e.g. dignity, autonomy, safety). Our current methods for evaluating value for money in health do not capture these aspects. The project will provide benefit by allowing health system decision makers to achieve fairer allocation of resources across diverse health conditions, interventions and patient populations. Expected outcomes include a new tool for assessing interventions and measuring population health incorporating both health and social outcomes. Read moreRead less
Nanny state or good public policy: Do the benefits of mandatory health programs justify the loss of consumer choice? Governments are increasingly turning to mandatory programs to improve health. Such programs are appealing because there are high health benefits from universal participation and low costs for promotion and monitoring the program. However, this apparent benefit relies on restriction of personal choice, which may impose welfare losses on consumers. Evaluations generally ignore loss ....Nanny state or good public policy: Do the benefits of mandatory health programs justify the loss of consumer choice? Governments are increasingly turning to mandatory programs to improve health. Such programs are appealing because there are high health benefits from universal participation and low costs for promotion and monitoring the program. However, this apparent benefit relies on restriction of personal choice, which may impose welfare losses on consumers. Evaluations generally ignore loss of choice, despite evidence suggesting consumers value the ability to choose. This study will estimate the impact and value this loss of consumer choice, explore program specific factors and consumer characteristics influencing the valuation, and determine whether and how restricted choice should be explicitly considered when evaluating public health programs.Read moreRead less
Modelling health: Reporting behaviour and misclassification using survey data. Empirical models based on large scale survey data sets are used by health economists to inform policymakers. However, in the case of sensitive topics, a potential for survey misreporting may lead to inaccurate estimates of aberrant behaviours. To date, little work has been done analysing the extent and consequences of inaccurate reporting, especially within health economics. By addressing areas where potential for mis ....Modelling health: Reporting behaviour and misclassification using survey data. Empirical models based on large scale survey data sets are used by health economists to inform policymakers. However, in the case of sensitive topics, a potential for survey misreporting may lead to inaccurate estimates of aberrant behaviours. To date, little work has been done analysing the extent and consequences of inaccurate reporting, especially within health economics. By addressing areas where potential for misinformation is high, the overall quality of results will be enhanced. This research will be submitted to highly ranked health economics and econometrics journals to be made available to relevant policymakers intent on ensuring a healthy society.Read moreRead less
Economic analysis of inter-relationships between private health insurance and health expenditures. Health care services involve a complex mix of private and public funding and provision. The links between policy initiatives, such as private health insurance incentives, and outcomes are often unclear. This project involves a detailed economic and econometric investigation of individual health insurance and health care consumption decisions and their interaction, and the resulting impact on health ....Economic analysis of inter-relationships between private health insurance and health expenditures. Health care services involve a complex mix of private and public funding and provision. The links between policy initiatives, such as private health insurance incentives, and outcomes are often unclear. This project involves a detailed economic and econometric investigation of individual health insurance and health care consumption decisions and their interaction, and the resulting impact on health care utilisation and expenditure across public and private sectors. The significance of the project lies in its use of innovative methods to combine several data sources, and in the potential for the resulting models to predict the impact of future health policy initiatives.
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Child Dental Benefit Policies and the Health of Australian Children. This project aims to examine the early effects of two recent initiatives by the Australian government to improve children’s dental health by providing funds to cover essential dental services for children from disadvantaged families. It explores the factors affecting eligible children’s access to benefits from these initiatives and identifies the causal impacts of these changed health care financing arrangements on children’s c ....Child Dental Benefit Policies and the Health of Australian Children. This project aims to examine the early effects of two recent initiatives by the Australian government to improve children’s dental health by providing funds to cover essential dental services for children from disadvantaged families. It explores the factors affecting eligible children’s access to benefits from these initiatives and identifies the causal impacts of these changed health care financing arrangements on children’s consumption of dental services, indicators of oral health and general health, and other indicators of cognitive and non-cognitive development. Using advanced econometric techniques and panel datasets, this project is expected to contribute to the development of effective policies for promoting health and wellbeing.Read moreRead less
Microeconometric Analysis of Socioeconomic Inequity in Mental Healthcare. The project aims to describe the extent of socioeconomic inequity in Australian mental healthcare use, identify the causal pathways that drive inequities, and conduct economic evaluations of programs aimed at increasing healthcare access. Microeconometric methods will be used to analyse large, longitudinal datasets that have not previously been used for this purpose. The project expects to provide a greater understanding o ....Microeconometric Analysis of Socioeconomic Inequity in Mental Healthcare. The project aims to describe the extent of socioeconomic inequity in Australian mental healthcare use, identify the causal pathways that drive inequities, and conduct economic evaluations of programs aimed at increasing healthcare access. Microeconometric methods will be used to analyse large, longitudinal datasets that have not previously been used for this purpose. The project expects to provide a greater understanding of the barriers that people face in accessing treatment and how to overcome them. Such understanding is currently missing from academic literatures and policy inquiries. Ultimately, the research should aid in the design of cost-effective policies that improve health outcomes and that reduce inequities in treatment access.Read moreRead less
The training and job decisions of nurses: an integrated approach using panel surveys and dynamic discrete choice experiments. The nursing shortage in Australia is considered to be at crisis stage. The results of this study will lead to improved recruitment and retention of students in nursing, improved retention of new nurses in the health workforce, better design of nursing roles and job structure, and testing of the acceptability of changed health service delivery models. It will also lead to ....The training and job decisions of nurses: an integrated approach using panel surveys and dynamic discrete choice experiments. The nursing shortage in Australia is considered to be at crisis stage. The results of this study will lead to improved recruitment and retention of students in nursing, improved retention of new nurses in the health workforce, better design of nursing roles and job structure, and testing of the acceptability of changed health service delivery models. It will also lead to better health workforce planning. The study directly contributes to filling the gaps in health labour force quantitative studies identified in a recent Productivity Commission Report, and provides a basis for the implementation of the Commission's recommendations.Read moreRead less
Bayesian Analysis of Treatment Effects in Experiments with Imperfect Compliance. This research has a potential to benefit society by providing methods to evaluate the effectiveness of medical treatments and socio-economic and health related interventions and policies based on experiments with imperfect compliance. The proposed methods are directly relevant to the second national research priority, as they can be used to test potential measures for preventative health care and to evaluate measure ....Bayesian Analysis of Treatment Effects in Experiments with Imperfect Compliance. This research has a potential to benefit society by providing methods to evaluate the effectiveness of medical treatments and socio-economic and health related interventions and policies based on experiments with imperfect compliance. The proposed methods are directly relevant to the second national research priority, as they can be used to test potential measures for preventative health care and to evaluate measures for strengthening Australia's social and economic fabric. The usefulness of our methods is demonstrated in the analysis of the effectiveness of a training program for the unemployed in alleviating negative mental health effects from job loss.Read moreRead less
Developing methods for benefit measurement in health-related economic analyses and their use in selecting public health promotional programs. The program involves the creation, validation and use of a suite of instruments for evaluating outcomes of health promotional programs, including adult and childhood obesity, depression and smoking - areas that are universally recognised as being of importance for the Australian community. The program will provide multiple scoring algorithms for each of th ....Developing methods for benefit measurement in health-related economic analyses and their use in selecting public health promotional programs. The program involves the creation, validation and use of a suite of instruments for evaluating outcomes of health promotional programs, including adult and childhood obesity, depression and smoking - areas that are universally recognised as being of importance for the Australian community. The program will provide multiple scoring algorithms for each of the instruments in order to test the sensitivity of results to assumptions made about social values, and will produce Australian estimates of the person trade-off weights used in the Australian and Victorian Burden of Disease studies (which presently use Dutch PTO weights). Read moreRead less
Blended payment systems for doctors: evaluation of an experiment. The results of the study will provide new evidence for health care policy makers in Australia (and internationally) on the effects of changing the remuneration system for GPs on the costs and quality of health care provided. The study will examine effects in the national priority and national health priority areas of preventive health care and chronic disease. The results will be relevant to other countries, such as the US and U ....Blended payment systems for doctors: evaluation of an experiment. The results of the study will provide new evidence for health care policy makers in Australia (and internationally) on the effects of changing the remuneration system for GPs on the costs and quality of health care provided. The study will examine effects in the national priority and national health priority areas of preventive health care and chronic disease. The results will be relevant to other countries, such as the US and UK, where blended payments schemes exist for GPs but have not been evaluated. Read moreRead less