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How to Harmonise Health and Economics
13 July 2009
This week sees the start of the 7th World Congress of the International Health Economics Association (iHEA) in Beijing. IDS will have a strong presence there through its partnerships with international health consortiums: Future Health Systems Consortium (FHS), and Povill.
David Peters, Director of the Future Health Systems (FHS) Consortium said ‘The iHEA World Congress provides the premier forum for debate in the application of economics to health and health care systems internationally, and is a place where the Future Health Systems Research Consortium can focus attention on the concerns of the poor. The China Health Economics Institute (CHEI) – an FHS consortium partner – is co-hosting the biennial World Congress of iHEA, providing an opportunity to demonstrate how important health reforms and research are influencing health policy and programs to benefit the poor in this rapidly changing environment.’
Professor Zhang Zhengzhong, Director of CHEI, is chairing a session at the conference on Monday 13 July on ‘Future Health Systems: Responding to new challenges and new opportunities.’ We will be discussing new ways of thinking about the management of health system change in contexts of rapid social, economic and geopolitical change. Join in the debate via the FHS & POVILL Blog from iHEA 2009, Beijing blog.
Lessons from the Chinese approach
The Chinese Health Economics Institute is organising a day-long series of sessions on different aspects of China’s recently announced health reform policy. The objective of the policy is to increase access to health services substantially and reduce the impoverishing impact of major illness. IDS and the Chinese Health Economics Institute will be using this opportunity to launch a new IDS In Focus policy briefing on ‘Lessons from the Chinese approach to health systems development.’ This briefing looks at how China is managing major health system reforms against a background of rapid economic and institutional change and in doing so is developing a learning approach to transition management and institution-building.
Gerry Bloom, one of the authors of the briefing, said, ‘Policy-makers and researchers around the world can learn a lot from China’s experience of managing health-system reform in a context of rapid change. However this will require a substantial effort by policy analysts in China to provide systematic learning from what has worked well and what has not, and by policy analysts in other countries to identify lessons relevant to their own circumstances’.
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Related Publications
- Bloom, G., Hawkins, K., Pei, X., Xiao, Y. and Zhang, Z. (2009) 'Lessons from the Chinese Approach to Health System Development', IDS In Focus Policy Briefings 8.1, Brighton: IDS
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