AØKA08079U Health Economics

The course in Health Economics aims to provide the student with solid knowledge about a wide range of health economic models and applications.

The student is presented to the basic models of economic evaluation of health care programmes, peculiarities in markets for health care services, health insurance, health care productivity analysis, and regulation of pharmaceutical markets.

As an applied micro course, the student sees how fundamental issues in often complex health economic problems and dilemmas can be analyzed using the toolbox of the undergraduate level micro courses. While the scope of the course is mainly theoretical, it is closely related to practical problems in health care production and administration. The course therefore provides the student with a good foundation for administrative and analytical positions in various organizations in the health care sector.

At the end of the course, the student will be able to analyze specific health economic issues, from the perspective of an economic model. For successful completion of the course, the student demonstrates a reasonable insight into the underlying economic issues in the health care sector, is able to draw on basic modelling frameworks in analyzing such problems, and presents a discussion of these issues in a fairly clear and organized way. The very good student demonstrates a deep understanding of the theoretical models presented in the course, and is able to connect, combine or adapt general ideas and concepts to specific health economic problems under consideration.