A Health Economics conference was hailed a success when it returned to Exeter after 40 years
Health Economics comes home to Exeter
Two “founding fathers” of the subject of health economics returned to their training ground of the University of Exeter, when it successfully hosted a national conference this week. The Health Economists’ Study Group 2013 winter meeting hosted more than 120 delegates from research groups around the UK and elsewhere.
As well as discussing a diverse range of health economics papers, two celebratory lectures were given by Professor Tony Culyer and Professor Alan Maynard OBE, who were both lecturers in economics at the University of Exeter in the late 60s and early 70s.
After his time as an economics lecturer in Exeter (1965-69), Tony Culyer went on to: found the world’s first association of health economists (the UK Health Economists' Study Group, in 1972), start the first academic journal in the field (the Journal of Health Economics), and played a major role in the creation of both the NHS Research and Development programme (after the ‘Culyer Report’) and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. After his time at Exeter (1968-71), Alan Maynard went on to: co-found the Centre for Health Economics at York, be Founding Editor of the journal Health Economics, be a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Health Select Committee (2006-10) and work as a consultant for – among many others – the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, and the European Union.
As well as marking the return of our distinguished speakers, it was also the return to Exeter of the HESG meeting itself. Back in 1973, only a year after the creation of the UK Health Economists’ Study Group, the University of Exeter economists hosted the third ever HESG meeting attracting about 30 attendees.
This time the HESG meeting in Exeter was one of the largest ever held, attracting 129 delegates from many UK universities, the NHS, Department of Health and also from Finland, Belgium, Canada and Australia.
Professor Colin Green, Head of the Health Economics Group in the University of Exeter Medical School, said “The Exeter Health Economists' Study Group meeting has been a resounding success, and its return after a 40 year absence firmly establishes the contribution Exeter is making to the discipline of health economics and to applied health research more broadly.”
Wallet and stethoscope image via Shutterstock
Date: 15 January 2013
