August 4, 2010

Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Direct, Indirect and Mixed Treatment Evidence: University of Glasgow

Location: Glasgow, UK
Dates: 4th-6th August 2010,

The Health Economics Appraisals Team (HEAT) at the University of Glasgow are pleased to announce a three day course on conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Through a series of lectures and hands-on workshops (using Stata and WinBUGS), this course will cover the principles and practice of conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of a variety of measures of treatment effects. In addition, participants will learn the important aspects of network meta-analysis, going beyond traditional pairwise techniques when comparing multiple treatment options.

The course is suitable for clinicians, health service researchers and other healthcare professionals who are involved in systematic reviews and meta-analyses as a piece of independent work or an integral part of a health technology assessment.

Participants should have knowledge of basic medical statistics. A basic appreciation of research design would be helpful, as would basic knowledge of Stata and WinBUGS. A half day introduction to Stata is available on 3 August for those less familiar with the software.

More information can be found on the course webpage see http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/healtheconomicappraisalsteam/

Further details and booking information are available from the HEAT administrator: heat@clinmed.gla.ac.uk

August 4, 2010: Short Course

August 9, 2010

HRH Labor Markets Course: Analyze & Plan Human Resources for Health

Location: Berkeley, California USA
Venue: University of California, Berkeley
Dates: August 9 - 13, 2010
Application deadline: April 15, 2010

This course will teach economic models and tools used to estimate workforce needs, demand, and supply. The course will provide an overview of key topical areas centered on increasing productivity, including skill mix, distribution, and incentives. It will analyze HRH policies that have strengthened health systems, such as improving health worker effectiveness, increasing re cruitment and retention, and reducing urban-rural imbalances.

Who should attend: This course is designed for managers, planners, and analysts who work in the human resources in health field within organizations such as Ministries of Health, health care facilities, aid organizations, and academic institutions, particularly those from low or middle income countries. The principles taught in the course will be applicable to all countries, but the case studies will focus on low-income countries. The case studies will include quantitative exercises, such as analyzing data.

Format and language: The format will be a combination of lectures and formal instruction, and group projects. Specifically, lectures will occur each morning, and afternoon small-group projects will apply the tools learned in the lectures. The course will be taught in English.

Curriculum

Day 1: Health workers and labor market principles. How do health workers function within a health system? How are health workers defined (e.g., education, skills)? What factors affect the labor force supply and demand, and how are wages determined?

Day 2: Workforce need, demand, and supply. What methods are used to estimate health workforce need and demand? How is workforce supply forecasted? How can skill mix changes reduce forecasted shortages? How is inequality measured? What are the key health worker data sources?

Day 3: Incentives. How do you recruit and retain health workers? What factors affect equity and distribution, and how can you influence them? How do you recruit workers to rural areas? What incentives have been deployed and to what effect?

Day 4: Financing. How do financing choices affect the health workforce? What are the different types of healthcare financing systems that exist, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? How do countries vary with respect to public, private, insurance, and out of pocket payments?

Day 5: Policy evaluation. How do you include an evaluation component within a policy design, for example, to test the effect of incentives? How do economists and policy-makers work together, and what are examples of how they have worked together in your home country? How do global health initiatives such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals affect workforce planning?

Instructors:

Timothy T. Brown, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Mario R. Dal Poz, MD, PhD, MSc, World Health Organization
Brent D. Fulton, PhD, MBA, University of California, Berkeley
Thomas L. Hall, MD, DrPH, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
Audrey LaPorte, PhD, University of Toronto
Alexander S. Preker, MD, PhD, The World Bank
Richard M. Scheffler, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Agnes Soucat, MD, MPH, Ph.D, The World Bank
Joanne Spetz, PhD, University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing
Kate Tulenko, MD, MPH, MPhil, IntraHealth, CapacityPlus
Marko Vujicic, PhD, The World Bank

Logistics and Details

When: August 9-13, 2010

Location: Berkeley, California. Applicants are expected to stay at the Berkeley City Club, where the course will be held along with breakfast and lunch. Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704, +1-510-848-7800, guestservices@berkeleycityclub.com

Course fee: $3,200 includes breakfast and lunch, one dinner, and course materials.

Application: Individuals who are interested in admission to the course need to submit an application and curriculum vitae by April 15, 2010. Application can be found at: http://ghwen.org/training/hrh/register

Visas: Applicants are responsible to obtain a visa.

This course is being sponsored by The Global Health Workforce Economics Network (GHWEN), housed in the University of California-Berkeley, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization. The objective of the GHWEN is to promote collaboration in health workforce economics research, with an emphasis on developing evidence for actionable policy-making.

Contact:

Amy Nuttbrock, Course Coordinator
Email: amynuttbrock@berkeley.edu
Telephone: +1-510-643-4100
Facsimile: +1-510-643-4281

Brent D. Fulton, Ph.D., Academic Coordinator
Email: fultonb@berkeley.edu
Telephone: +1-510-643-4102

August 9, 2010: Short Course

September 1, 2010

PhD in Economics: Economics Department at IUPUI

Location: Indiana, USA
Start date: Fall 2010

The Economics Department at IUPUI is pleased to announce a new PhD in Economics. We will be accepting our first entering PhD class for Fall of 2010. Fellowship support will be offered on a competitive basis.

The program will specialize in Health Economics. Students will begin with PhD core training in economic theory and econometrics, emphasizing microeconomic theory and microeconometrics. Specializing in health economics will allow us to offer a two-course field sequence in health economics as well as a course focusing on the institutional context of health, health care, and health insurance. Importantly, students will also take elective courses such as biostatistics, epidemiology, bioethics, or health policy, giving them a background that will facilitate working in the interdisciplinary teams with whom health economists often interact. In addition to econometric theory, we will also offer a year-long empirical econometrics sequence, emphasizing statistical packages, working with large datasets, and problems in applied econometrics. We plan strong disciplinary training in micro theory, econometrics, and health economics enhanced with exposure to other related disciplines central to health and health care.

More information on the department and the program is online at http://liberalarts.iupui.edu/~econ. Questions can be emailed to econphd@iupui.edu.

September 1, 2010: PhD

September 15, 2010

Advanced Modelling Methods for Health Economic Evaluation A Computer Based Course

Location: Glasgow and York, UK
Dates: York: March 29 - 31, 2010; Glasgow: September 2010 (dates to be confirmed)

The Public Health & Health Policy Section at the University of Glasgow and the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York are jointly running three-day courses on advanced modelling methods to be held at venues in Glasgow and York. The next course will be held in 2010, the course will be run at the University of York from 29th - 31st March 2010. Booking forms are online now. The course will be also run in Glasgow in September 2010. Dates to be confirmed. Please contact The Public Health & Health Policy Section at the University of Glasgow directly if you would like to attend the September 2010 course.

This is an advanced course focusing specifically on decision modelling and intended for people currently undertaking modelling for health economic evaluation within the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, consultancy, academia or the health service. Participants would be expected to have attended an advanced course in economic evaluation such as the Expert Workshops in the Socio Economic Evaluation of Medicines run by the University of York.

Further details and booking information is available from the following links York based course or Glasgow based course.

September 15, 2010: Short Course

September 20, 2010

Indirect And Mixed Treatment Comparisons: 3-day course

Location: Leicester, UK
Venue: Vaughan College
Dates: September 20-22 2010

Overview

This course is for health economists, statisticians and decision modellers, and systematic reviewers interested in the extension of pair-wise meta-analysis to indirect and mixed treatment comparisons, in the context of either clinical effectiveness or economic evaluation.

The course focuses on Bayesian methods for statistically combining evidence from networks of trials, integrating statistical estimation within a probabilistic modeling framework. The assumptions underlying both pair-wise meta-analysis and mixed treatment comparisons are critically examined. The course also covers methods for detecting and managing heterogeneity and inconsistency.

This is an informal, hands-on course, based on a mixture of lectures and practical work on published datasets using the Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo package WinBUGS. Course tutors are available throughout to answer questions and help with exercises.

It is a collaboration between the Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester and the Department of Community Based Medicine, University of Bristol.

Intended Audience

• Anyone undertaking or managing health technology assessments, including in the context of cost-effectiveness analysis,
• Statisticians, familiar with the principles of meta-analysis, who wish to learn about Bayesian methods for evidence synthesis particularly in the context of cost-effectiveness analysis,
• Anyone responsible for managing systematic reviews.

Course Faculty

Prof Keith Abrams,
Prof Tony Ades,
Debbi Caldwell,
Nicola Cooper,
Sofia Dias,
Prof Alex Sutton and Nicky Welton

Course Pre-Requisites

Participants should be familiar with the basic principles of meta-analysis, and have a good working knowledge of logistic regression and statistical interaction. Experience with probabilistic decision analysis in cost effectiveness analysis would be an advantage, but is not necessary.

Further Details and Registration Forms from:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cobm/research/mpes

September 20, 2010: Short Course