MONDAY 25 JANUARY 2021, 9-10am: INTERNAL GUEST SEMINAR

Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe

Further details for current students and staff to follow.

TUESDAY 26 JANUARY 2021, 1-2pm: DEPARMENTAL WEBINAR SERIES

Dr Anna Nicinska, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

Soviet communism and health: the role of education

Later-life health is shaped by relevant factors that occurred over a life course, and their impact varies depending on individual education. We aim to examine how the events experienced in the past affected health of older adults living in post-communist countries, with particular focus on the role of the exposure to communist education. Although the health-education gradient has been examined for Western countries extensively, our understanding of the relationship between education and health in previously communist political-economic regimes remains limited.

Social institutions concerned with health care and behavioral risks varied substantially between communist and non-communist countries. Specifically, Soviet education system with particular attention paid to physical education, differed significantly from education system in Western countries. In addition, the transition from communism to free market regime brought institutional and economic shocks. These differences might have long-lasting effects especially if associated with the exposures during periods of life characterized by particular vulnerability.

We apply a difference-in-differences approach to SHARE and GGS data to find positive effects of education on later-life health. Interestingly, the effects of communist education are more pronounced than the education effects in Western European countries as well as in the post-communist countries after the regime transformation.

This work is supported by the Bekker programme of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange and by the Polish National Science Center.

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TUESDAY 2 FEBRUARY 2021, 5-6pm: INTERNAL GUEST SEMINAR

Mr DI Martin Brunninger, Director General at the Department of Health & Social Care for Austria

Further details for current students and staff to follow.

TUESDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2021, 10.30am-12pm: SPECIAL DEPARTMENTAL GUEST SEMINAR 

Mr Jean Philbert (Phil) Nsengimana, Managing Director for Africa at The Commons Project

Key policy challenges for eHealth in Africa

This lecture will discuss key policy challenges of eHealth in Africa. eHealth (also referred to as Digital Health) refers to services utilizing digital technologies to deliver healthcare, support learning and self-care, facilitate healthcare management and research. Proponents of eHealth suggests it can lead to better quality and cheaper healthcare. In Africa and in developing countries elsewhere, eHealth is being implemented to improve accessibility to quality and equitable healthcare for poor, vulnerable and remote communities, to improve public health and efficiency of services. Applications include mHealth, eLearning, telemedicine, electronic health records, as well as disease monitoring systems. However, both developed and developing countries have struggled with implementing and evaluating eHealth, suffered from low adoption rates and experienced lower than expected benefits. Challenges include complexity of organizational and technological structures, diverse interests of heterogenous stakeholders, lack of resources and relevant capabilities, governance and privacy issues.

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TUESDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2021, 1-2pm: INTERNAL GUEST SEMINAR

Chris James, Senior Health Economist at OECD

Further details for current students and staff to follow.

TUESDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2021, 1-2pm: DEPARMENTAL WEBINAR SERIES

Dr Judith Vall, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Universitat de Barcelona & Researcher

Living at the peak: health and public finance during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper provides novel evidence for the determinants of preferences for public health and the willingness to pay for health services using a survey experiment implemented during the third week of the lock-down in Spain. At the time of our experiment the confirmed COVID-19 cases reached the 100k mark in Spain and 1 million worldwide. We collect information on several health outcomes, which we are able to benchmark with results from previous surveys.

Results show a substantial deterioration of mental health, which is more pronounced in groups of the population with less stable income sources. Furthermore, we implement two information treatments about the fatality rate across age groups and the incidence rate across regions. We ask participants about their preferred budget allocation, which we can again benchmark against the enacted budget and previous surveys. Results suggest that preferences for health care expenditures have almost doubled.

Furthermore, we ask respondents about their willingness to pay for one out of three randomly assigned health care improvements. Contributions for more ICU beds are significantly higher compered to medical treatments and a vaccine.

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TUESDAY 9 MARCH 2021, 1-2pm: DEPARTMENTAL WEBINAR SERIES

Professor John Cawley, Professor and co-Director of Cornell's Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors and Disparities, Cornell University

The Effects of Taxes on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

A common policy response to the recent rise in obesity is to tax sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), but the effects of these taxes are not well understood. In this presentation, we share findings from our studies of SSB taxes in various cities in the U.S., including the impact on prices (i.e. the pass-through of the taxes), sales of SSBs, and the consumption of SSBs.

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TUESDAY 23 MARCH 2021, 1-2pm: DEPARTMENTAL WEBINAR SERIES

Dr Chiara Orsini, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sheffield

Parental Human Capital Traits, Assortative Mating, and the Incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Further details and registration coming soon.

Previous events

See past Department of Health Policy events here.