Nermina Ferizovic | Health Economics Expert

Health economics, as an extension of economics, and which developed following Kenneth Arrow’s seminal paper, welcomes practitioners from a whole host of fields including, but not limited to, natural sciences, pharmacy, nursing, and psychology. This largely stems from health economics being a fast-developing and exciting field but a relatively young one where many elements have not yet been standardised. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this.

A rich array of skills in the field presents the opportunity to make health economics a more exciting and versatile field developing further its techniques and methodologies to determine the allocation of scarce resources perhaps more adequately and appropriately. Additional viewpoints, the so-called ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking, sometimes stifled in less adaptable sectors, can be rife in fields welcoming to a wide range of experiences. This wide range of experience has the potential knock-on effect of creating more well-rounded health economics practitioners through the exchange and sharing of knowledge to which they would not normally have access. 

The disadvantages are those that are commonplace in any sector with a lack of standardisation. The key one, obviously, is poor quality work, lacking in economic merit, which may lead to poor resource allocation decisions with its potentially devastating consequences. This could also lead to the poor teaching and tutoring of future practitioners thus further compounding the negative effects. A further related negative impact is the reduction in innovation this may lead to thus preventing the further development of techniques and methodologies. Although, of course, the relationship between innovation and standards is complex. 

The exciting field of health economics has potentially much to gain from the rich experiences of its practitioners but as a relatively young field, these disadvantages may well turn out to be judged as part of the evolution of the field and a natural ‘step’ in the development of a more formalised and standardised field.