Manchester Centre for Health Economics

Developing and applying health economic methods to maximise health and care value.

 

 

The Manchester Centre for Health Economics (MCHE) provides academic expertise in health economics for the delivery of research programmes and projects, and to support the development of the careers of early and mid-career researchers.

On this page:

Our expertise

Our team of dedicated researchers offers leading expertise across a wide spectrum of health-related disciplines.

We focus on generating impactful research through the application of robust and innovative methods.

Key research themes

  • Mental health economics and policy
  • Patient safety improvement and evaluation
  • Precision medicine and genomic evaluation
  • Cancer screening, treatment, and survivorship
  • Women’s health across the life course
  • Medicines adherence, optimisation, and policy
  • Dental health services research and economics

Methodological expertise

  • Decision-analytic modelling for economic evaluation
  • Utilisation of routine data in economic evaluation
  • Methods for integrated economic and clinical trials
  • Optimisation methods considering capacity constraints
  • Econometric analysis of administrative and survey datasets
  • Valuation methods for health benefits and harms
  • Stated preference methods (e.g., Discrete Choice Experiments)
  • Evaluation methods for complex health & social care programmes
  • Health Technology Assessment (HTA) processes and methods
  • Workforce planning and resource allocation modelling

Interested in working with us?

If you want more information about working with our team.

Contact us

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Our research

Health economics involves the development and application of economic methods for studying the production of health, illness and recovery.

It furthers understanding of the behaviour of individuals, health care providers and health systems, and compares alternative uses of health care resources to improve the health of individuals, patient groups and populations.

Much of our work is grant-funded from national and international funding bodies but also from charity-based organisations.

The team currently hold grants from a wide range of funders, notably the Medical Research Council (MRC), the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), the Department of Health and the European Union.

Key charities which support our research include Cancer Research UK and Arthritis UK.

Examples of research programmes we work with include:

In addition, members of staff within MCHE support and working collaboratively with the University of Manchester Innovation Factory andthe Diagnostics and Technology Accelerator to help small- to medium-sized enterprises and academic teams understand the value of their proposed health care innovations.

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Teaching

We contribute to professional training qualifications and undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University.

Professional training qualifications include teaching a module on economic evaluation for two Scientist Training Programmes in clinical bioinformatics and genomic counselling.

We also contribute to the Epidemiology Summer School organised by the Division of Population Health, Health Services Research and Primary Care.

We supervise projects in health economics for medical students completed as part of the MBChB Medicine programme for second and third year medical students on the Personal Excellence Pathway (PEP) and Applied Personal Excellence Pathway (APEP).

We also contribute to health economics modules on three postgraduate courses at the University:

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Our people

Core academic and research staff

PhD students, honorary, emeritus and administrative staff

  • Tom Clemmet
    PhD Student in Health Economics
  • Garima Dalal
    PhD Student and NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow in Health Economics.
  • Talha Khan-Israeel
    PhD Student in Health Economics
  • Bowen Yang
    PhD Student in Health Economics
  • Doudou Zheng
    PhD Student in Health Economics/Research Assistant
  • Matthew Ward
    Administrator
  • Stephen Birch
    Emeritus Professor of Health Economics
  • William Whittaker
    Honorary Senior Lecturer in Health Economics
  • Elizabeth Camacho
    Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Health Economics
  • Linda Davies
    Emeritus Professor of Health Economics
  • Mark Harrison
    Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Health Economics

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Newsletter

Stay up to date with the latest from the Centre and health economics research news from across the University.

You can download PDF versions of our most recent issues from the links below:

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Blog

Discover more about our latest research highlights.

Read posts from our team.

Visit our blog

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MCHE seminar series

The Manchester Centre for Health Economics (MCHE) regularly hosts a vibrant external seminar programme, welcoming leading researchers from around the globe to share their latest work.

These sessions provide a fantastic opportunity for discussion and collaboration, covering a diverse range of topics in health economics and policy.

Here’s a flavour of some recent presentations:

  • Prof Heather Brown (Lancaster University) explored the critical issue of “Quantifying the Health and Health Inequality Impact of Climate Change.” Her presentation delved into how climate change affects health outcomes and inequalities, and the methods for incorporating these far-reaching impacts into economic evaluations and Health Technology Assessments.
  • Dr Mark Harrison (University of British Columbia), a former MCHE colleague, presented on “The road to increased biosimilar market share in BC, Canada: Navigating the switchbacks.” This insightful talk examined a significant policy intervention in British Columbia aimed at increasing the uptake of biosimilar drugs, considering its impact on market shares, patients, and physicians.
  • Dr Tom Callender (UCL & UK Department of Health and Social Care) discussed innovative approaches in “Modelling risk-based prostate cancer screening & multi-cancer detection tests.” His seminar covered the complexities and potential of new screening strategies, along with the challenges of modelling their clinical and cost-effectiveness.
  • Dr. Ed Webb (University of Leeds) presented on “Deprivation, ethnicity and quality-adjusted life expectancy norms.” This work examined how UK QALE population norms vary by these key factors, discussing implications for measuring disease severity and for equity in health economics.

These are just a few examples of the high-calibre research and diverse topics featured in our external seminar series.

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Contact us

If you’d like more information, please get in touch.

Centre Lead

Professor Rachel Elliott
Professor of Health Economics
Email: rachel.a.elliott@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 5846

Deputy Centre Lead

Dr Alexander Thompson
Senior Lecturer in Health Economics
Email: alexander.thompson@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 0335

General enquiries

Matthew Ward
Administrator for Health Economics
Email: matthew.ward@manchester.ac.uk

Social media

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