Economics of infectious diseases
The application of methods from health economics to infectious diseases including but not limited to economic evaluation of interventions targeted at infectious diseases
Aim
To bring together health economists working in the space of infectious diseases.
Objectives
- Build capacity in health economics methods and applications addressing infectious diseases
- Raise the profile of health economists in Australia to contribute to policy and practice globally relating to infectious diseases
- Develop a mutually supportive and collaborative network of health economists involved in economics of infectious diseases research
- Provide opportunities for mentoring and advice regarding issues specific to infectious disease economics, and with a particular focus on early career academics and students.
- Help foster multidisciplinary collaborations with those in other relevant fields such as mathematical modellers.
- Conduct regular meetings of the SIG including network-building, member presentations of their own work, journal club style presentations, discussion of funding opportunities, Q&A
- Plan an organised session for AHES 2024 or at the next available opportunity.
- Engage with relevant health policy community consultation processes as a group (for example, ATAGI (Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation), PBAC (Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee), ARIA (Australian Regional Immunisation Aliance))
- Develop avenues for dissemination of members’ research to raise the profile to policymakers and other target audiences (e.g. AHES newsletter, Twitter account)
- Coordinate activities with other relevant networks such as IHEA Vaccine Economics SIG (where relevant), NHMRC CRE STRIDE (Stronger Investments for Infectious Diseases), NHRMC CRE SPECTRUM (Supporting Participatory Evidence Generation to Control Transmission Disease in our Region using Modelling) and upcoming DFAT Health Partnerships.
If you would like to join the SIG, please email the conveners:
Anthony Newall at a.newall@unsw.edu.au
Natalie Carvalho at natalie.carvalho@unimelb.edu.au
Conveners
Anthony Newall is an Associate Professor in Health Economics at the School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney. His main research area is the economic evaluation of infectious disease prevention strategies, as well as the mathematical modelling and statistical analyses that inform these evaluations. He has published over 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals on a range of vaccine preventable diseases, including the epidemiology and cost-effectiveness of prevention strategies for influenza (seasonal and pandemic), pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, and human papillomavirus.
He has previously been appointed to the World Health Organization (WHO) Roster of Experts in the area of Health Economics. He has also previously been an Honorary Fellow at the Australian National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) and a Visiting Scholar at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has received several awards for his research, including the Bernie J. O’Brien new investigator award from the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), the prestigious Aileen Plant Memorial Prize for infectious diseases research.
Natalie Carvalho is an Associate Professor of Health Economics in the Centre for Health Policy, at Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. She leads the Economics of Global Health and Infectious Diseases Unit within the Melbourne Health Economics group.
Natalie's research focuses primarily on priority-setting of health interventions in low- and middle-income countries using cost-effectiveness analysis, with a focus on infectious diseases. Her research further aims to incorporate equity and budgetary considerations into cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions to improve maternal and child health in low- and middle-income countries, in particular in relation to childhood vaccines.
Natalie is co-investigator on two NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence focused on infectious disease control in Australia and the Asia Pacific.
Natalie has been an AHES member since 2015, and is active within the AHES community. She started the AHES Mentoring Committee in 2019, through which the AHES Mentoring Program was developed in 2020.
Sophy Shih is a senior research fellow at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney. She has extensive experiences in designing and implementing trial-based economic assessments, conducting economic evaluations, and developing economic models. Her research covers a broad range of topics across both infectious and non-communicable diseases, with a particular emphasis on prevention. She is a chief investigator of five NHMRC and MRFF research grants, leading the health economics of point-of-care hepatitis C testing and treatment. She is also an associate investigator on Centre of Research Excellence for stronger investment in infectious diseases and a co-investigator of a project grant funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She has established extensive collaborations with international researchers, including infectious disease modellers from University of Bristol, UK and implementation scientists from McGill University, Canada.
Sophy publishes in high-impact, top-ranked journals and her research informs health policy. She received the Elsevier Atlas Award in 2023 for leading a paper published in The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific. She has been a member of AHES since 2007 and has been actively involved in its Special Interest Groups and Mentoring Program.