Inaugural King's Mini-Conference in Health Economics

Hosted by Health Economics for Life Sciences and Medicine (HELM) from the Department of Population Health Sciences in the School of Life Course & Population Sciences, in collaboration with King’s Health Economics (KHE) and the Department of Health Service and Population Research in the School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences, the first annual King’s Mini-Conference in Health Economics took place on Wednesday 1 November 2023.

The conference brought together Health Economists from across King’s to discuss ongoing research and potential collaborations and included academics, research staff, PhD students and affiliates from Universitas Padjadjaran and Monash University Malaysia.

Unlike most academic conferences where researchers present their own research, in this conference participants discussed colleagues’ research to provide recommendations before submission to peer review journals. The draft papers covered a broad range of topics, from patient preferences for treatment of type-1 diabetes and the translation and validation of quality-of-life tools to the impact of healthcare expenses on household consumption and informal care and provider costs of chronic conditions.

The discussions held allowed colleagues to provide constructive feedback and peers worked collaboratively to provide a better understanding of the interpretation of their work. The conference also gave colleagues from across the university the opportunity to meet in person, some for the first time, while global links could also be made as affiliates joined remotely from Sierra Leone, China, and Malaysia.

In addition to the academic rigour of the discussions, links were made with the prospect of more collaborative future work amongst health economists from across King’s. This included the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care and King’s Business School.

HELM and KHE would like to thank all attendees for their active participation and we look forward to reconvening next year. We would also like to add a special thanks to the Department of Population Health Sciences for supporting the event and invite those looking to incorporate health economics into their research to contact the HELM and KHE.