Introduction to priority settings in health

The participants will learn the basic methods for priority setting in health, with an emphasis on how to evaluate equity in access to health services and fairness in distributions of health outcomes, and to integrate tools for equity concerns and health maximization.

The course is divided into two parts:

Part 1: Will cover theoretical concepts of UHC, ethics, equity and fairness as well as health maximization, and how they are applied in global and national health care priority settings. 

Part 2: Will cover hands-on exercises on burden of disease, cost-effectiveness, and use of FairChoices DCP Analytic Tool

The first days are largely theoretical and consist of a mixture of lectures, breakout sessions and discussions on the main topics described above. Students are required to participate in group work on assigned topics. This includes daily student active teaching exercises, with alternating group compositions and presentation of results for the class. The remaining days are combinations of theory and practice, and students will work through exercises on their own laptops on a "learning by doing" principle.

Knowledge

The student

• is able to explain and justify distribution of scarce resources according to utilitarian, egalitarian and prioritarian principles, and how they apply to health.
• is able to describe key principles and criteria of health priority setting
• is able to explain basic ideas of fair priority setting process
• is able to explain what an Essential Health Service Package (EHSP) is and the key steps for revising EHSP
• is able to explain the basic concept of economic evaluation
• is able to explain the difference between data on average population coverage for a health service, and data on distribution of coverage disaggregated according to key determinants of health

Skills

The student

• can identify and provide arguments against unfairness in health and the determinants of health
• can identify and analyze various data needed for EHSP development/revision 
• can explore and use the FairChoices DCP Analytic Tool

General competence

The student

• can identify and analyze trade-offs in health care priority setting based on key values
• can evaluate and critically analyze health interventions according to principles of health maximization and fair distribution and standard quantitative methods
• can describe key elements of fair priority setting process in EHSP development/revision