Health Economics Guide

Health Economics Guide

A practical handbook of best practices for health economics.

This guide is for the people who run health and care organizations: chief executives and senior leaders, directors of digital and transformation, product and programme leads, clinical and care professionals, and operational managers. Its premise: in health, economics provides the frameworks for strategy, resourcing, equity, and public trust, not merely efficiency.

Start with the preface Browse all 33 topics Glossary

Translations: العربية, বাংলা, Cymraeg, Deutsch, English, Español, Français, हिन्दी, Bahasa Indonesia, 日本語, 한국어, Português, Русский, اردو, 中文

How the book is organized

Five parts, 33 topics. Any topic can be read on its own — the night before the decision.

Part 1 — Foundations

why health is economically different, and the models that explain it

  1. 1.1 Introduction to Health Economics
  2. 1.2 Demand for Health and Healthcare
  3. 1.3 Market Failure
  4. 1.4 Supply of Healthcare
  5. 1.5 Determinants of Health

Part 2 — Evaluation and Evidence

the analyst's toolkit: valuing outcomes, building models, testing claims

  1. 2.1 Economic Evaluation
  2. 2.2 Modelling
  3. 2.3 Health Econometrics
  4. 2.4 Pharmacoeconomics
  5. 2.5 Budget Impact and Affordability
  6. 2.6 Evidence Synthesis and Meta-Analysis

Part 3 — Systems, Policy and Priorities

how societies organize, fund, and share out healthcare

  1. 3.1 Health Systems
  2. 3.2 Health Policy
  3. 3.3 Rationing
  4. 3.4 Equity
  5. 3.5 Capabilities
  6. 3.6 Health Workforce and Labour Markets
  7. 3.7 Insurance and Risk Protection
  8. 3.8 Long-Term and Social Care Economics
  9. 3.9 Mental Health Economics
  10. 3.10 Strategic Purchasing and Commissioning
  11. 3.11 Quality and Safety Economics
  12. 3.12 Pandemic and Emergency Preparedness Economics

Part 4 — Global and Societal Issues

health beyond one system: behaviour, global trade and financing, the planet, and the public conversation

  1. 4.1 Behavioural Economics
  2. 4.2 Global Health and Trade
  3. 4.3 Climate and Planetary Health Economics
  4. 4.4 Social Media and Health Communication Economics

Part 5 — Digital, Software, and Technology

the economics of health technology: innovation, digital care, artificial intelligence, software, robotics, and data

  1. 5.1 Innovation Health Economics
  2. 5.2 Digital Health Economics
  3. 5.3 AI Health Economics
  4. 5.4 Software Engineering Health Economics
  5. 5.5 Robotics Health Economics
  6. 5.6 Health Data Economics

Reference

  • Glossary A–Z — plain-English definitions of every key term, each pointing at its home chapter.
  • Index by topic — concepts and frameworks mapped to the topics that cover them.
  • Source repository — the markdown behind this site, its specification, and the contribution guide.

Use with Claude

Two Claude Code skills teach an AI assistant to work with this guide.

  • health-economics-guide readers — routes a question to the right topic, answers grounded in the book's own text, runs team workshops from a topic's discussion questions, and applies the maturity model and checklists to a reader's own organization.
  • health-economics-guide-maintainer maintainers — encodes the book's authoring, review, and cross-file consistency rules for anyone writing, reviewing, or reorganizing topics.