Online Certificate Course in Basic Health Economics

Course Introduction

This online education portal has been envisaged to be pivotal in enhancing the knowledge and skills of health professionals by strengthening their capacity to implement activities and services in the field of public health using principles of health economics. These courses will cater to the needs of health care professionals such as public health managers, social scientists and other development managers.

Objectives of the Online Certificate Course in Basic Health Economics

To enable participants to gain an understanding of:

The relationship between Health and Development

The principles of demand and supply

Mechanisms and processes for financing health care

The principles of technical and allocative efficiency in health care delivery

Understand the principles of equity

To enable participants to develop skills to perform the following:

To be able to do a needs assessment for economic analysis of health programs being delivered at state and national levels

To be able to interpret findings from a report on economic evaluation

To be able to use health indictors and compute the human development index

To assess the effect of various health care interventions on the demand and supply for health care

Course Duration

On successful completion of the basic course, participants can exit the programme with a Certificate in Basic Health Economics or can further register for the Economic Evaluation for Health Technology Assessment Course. The Basics Course is of three months duration.

Course Contents: Basic Health Economics

Health and Development

Introduction to Microeconomics: Demand and Supply of Health Care

Inequalities in Health and Health Care

Overview of Health Financing

Health Care Financing in India

Introduction to Economic Evaluation: Cost Effectiveness Analysis in Health Care

Course Teaching & Delivery Methodology

The course is structured to be delivered as an online course.

Each chapter in the module will be delivered to the participants as audio recorded presentation lecture, accompanied by an extensively detailed lecture notes which will be provided as a pdf document.

We have taken care to make the course contents as comprehensible as possible, without taking away the quality of the contents. In order to meet this objective, we have kept the text of the lecture notes simple which is followed by a technical appendix. We do not expect the participants to reproduce the concepts from technical appendix in their coursework assignments, however, we do encourage the participants to read it and be able to understand the concepts.

An upto-date bibliography classified as essential and recommended readings comprising of articles, reports, book chapters, or books will be provided. Care has been taken to recommend material which is freely accessible so that participants do not find it difficult to obtain. We have also tried to provide, as far as possible, the material from the reading list.

Coursework & Assignments

We will provide a set of assignments along with each chapter. These assignments will test the participant’s understanding of the material by virtue of an exercise which may involve a simple excel-based computation, or an exercise which challenges the reasoning skills of participants based on concepts introduced in the lectures. Participants are encouraged to complete the exercise and submit it by uploading the assignment at www.healtheconomics.pgisph.in. Care has been taken to promote enhanced interactive learning by creation of discussion forums where participants will be required to go through their one fellow (any) candidate’s assignments. Participant assignments for each course have to be submitted within 1 week of completion of each chapter.

Course Certification

On successful submission of assignments in each module in this course, a certificate of participation will be awarded to the participant at the end of the course.

Computing Requirements Participants must have regular access to the internet. Below are the specifications for a computer to access the online courses offered. A computer with the minimum rather than recommended specifications will be able to use the courses but may be rather slow.

Computer with Audio Video support Processor Speed 1GHz Memory 2GB recommended or higher Hard disk space 2GB of available disk space or higher Operating System Windows Vista or higher Resolution Minimum 800x600 or higher recommended Broadband Internet connection with latest Firefox or Chrome or Safari Browser & with Flash Player