Health Economics

Health Economics can be defined as the application of the theories, concepts and techniques of economics to any issue related to health. During the last decades there has been a growing interest in this field which partly can be explained by the reduced economic growth, deficits in public budgets and increased unemployment rates and partly by the rapid introduction of new and more expensive health care technologies. The increasing number of treatments that potentially can be used to improve health has led to a widening gap between what the health sector technically can achieve and what society is able and willing to pay. This has led to an increased attention to economic research questions in the health sector. Health economics research focuses particularly on issues within a number of different areas related to the health sector such as economics of public health, organization, financing and incentives of different actors related to the health sector, and methods for the economic evaluation of medical technologies and prevention. This section is devoted to health economics as it represents a discipline on its own in economic research with strong relevance to significant issues covered by this journal.

• health economic evaluation and analysis
• health insurance and payment systems
• cost-effectiveness
• health care expenditure
• Efficiency and distributional aspects of health
• financing of health service
• policy interventions of public health
• economic incentives of health care
• health organization and administration