King's College London

The first annual King’s Mini-Conference in Health Economics took place on Wednesday 1st November 2023 at Guy’s Campus. It was hosted by Health Economics for Life Sciences and Medicine (HELM) within the Department of Population Health Sciences (School of Life Course & Population Sciences, SLCPS), in collaboration with King’s Health Economics (KHE), Department of Health Service and Population Research (School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences). The event brought together 29 health economists across King’s (academics, research staff, PhD students and affiliates from Universitas Padjadjaran and Monash University Malaysia) to discuss ongoing research and potential collaborations. Unlike most academic conferences where researchers present their own research, in this conference participants discussed other colleagues’ research to provide recommendations before submission to peer review journals. The draft papers, reporting research done within and outside the UK, covered a broad range of topics, including patient preferences for treatment of type 1 diabetes, translation and validation of quality-of-life tools, the impact of healthcare expenses on household consumption, and informal care and provider costs of chronic conditions such as stroke and type 2 diabetes.

Colleagues were able to meet in person, some for the first time, while non-UK based colleagues and affiliates joined remotely from Sierra Leone, China, and Malaysia. In addition to the academic rigour of the discussions, informal links were made with the prospect of more collaborative future work amongst King’s health economists who are situated across King’s, including 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 the conference attendees for their active participation and look forward to reconvening next year. Also special thanks to SLCPS Department of Population Health Sciences for supporting the event. We invite colleagues from across King’s interested in incorporating health economics in their research to reach out to HELM and KHE for collaboration.