Yesterday, Ghana launched its first Strategy for Health Technology Assessment (HTA). This strategy sends out a clear message of Ghana’s ambitious commitment to evidence informed priority setting. It recognizes that building an HTA function demands action on several areas, including capacity development, topic selection, and bespoke methods guidelines, all linked by a strong governance framework. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the use …
Webinar by Dr Hugo Turner, on the types of models used in economic evaluations, static versus dynamic models
Mathematical models are regularly needed to evaluate the impact of public health interventions and are often needed to perform economic evaluations. They are therefore an important element of priority setting and health technology assessments. Consequently, it is important to understand the key features, strengths and weaknesses of the different types of models used in this area. In particular, when evaluating …
Final report is out! Evaluation of the Quality Improvement Support to Differentiated Care Models for Anti-Retroviral Therapy in Kenya
Read the full report here Since January 2018, iDSI has been working closely with the Global Fund to fight against AIDS, TB and Malaria (henceforth the Global Fund), the Kenyan Ministry of Health (National AIDS and STI Control Program -NASCOP- and the National AIDS Control Council -NACC) to assess the impact of implementation of Quality Improvement (QI) in support to …
Simulation tool developed to assesses value of investing in national Health Technology Assessment Agencies
Article first published by University of Strathclyde Academics at the University of Strathclyde have produced a simulation tool for assessing the return on investment in Health Technology Assessment Agencies (HTAs) as part of a country’s healthcare system. The spreadsheet-based tool was produced as part of the Evaluating the Value of a Real-world HTA Agency (EVoRA) project, a collaboration with Thailand’s Health Intervention …
Costing Health Services in India – Incremental Steps Towards More Transparent Decision-Making
With a population of 1.4 billion and very limited public funding for healthcare (1.29 percent of GDP), an important priority for India is ensuring equitable and cost-effective healthcare. To meet these priorities, in 2018, the Government of India launched the world’s largest publicly funded health insurance scheme (ABPM-JAY), which includes a greater role for India’s large and growing private healthcare …
A call to stakeholders involved in COVID-19 response: how can we improve reporting standards and accountability?
The COVID-19 Multi-Model Comparison Collaboration (CMCC) is working together with the COVID-19 modellers, policy-makers, and technical experts, with the aim of enhancing the use of models to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. With a plethora of evidence generated since the outbreak, maintaining a good standard of reporting and ensuring accountability of the three stakeholders (Funders/Development Partners, Modelers/Technical Experts, and Decision-Makers/Policy Makers) …
Health technology assessment in sub-Saharan Africa: an initial survey of stakeholders
Report authors: Sam Hollingsworth, Kalipso Chalkidou and Francis Ruiz In this blog, Samantha Hollingworth, Francis Ruiz and Kalipso Chalkidou from the International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI), discuss the findings of their recently published Brief Report, which aims to rapidly assess current health system priorities and policy areas of demand for health technology assessment (HTA) in Sub-Saharan Africa, and identify key gaps in data …
Developing a framework for co-financing decisions: the Analysis of Interventions in Development Aid (AIDA) study
The analysis of Interventions in Development Aid (AIDA) study aimed to explore and propose a principled framework for thinking about and discussing donor co-financing decisions. With support from iDSI, researchers from the University of Strathclyde and the University of Ghana explored the issue in the context of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) co-financing countries as they transition towards graduation and …
Calling all those teaching health economics in sub-Saharan Africa – an invitation to participate in a survey to identify teaching institutions
This is a critical time for teaching health economics in sub Saharan Africa. Many countries are journeying towards Universal Health Coverage while transitioning from donor funding, and the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the essential convergence between health and behaviors, health financing, health systems and macroeconomics in decision-making and health policy. The need for local health economists in Africa has never …