Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) 2021-22 Colloquium series "Aligning Incentives for Better Health and More Resilient Health Systems in Asia”

How can policymakers quantify the net value of medical spending? For what medical conditions has the “bang for the buck” been greatest, and for what conditions has spending outstripped gains in health improvement? Join this virtual workshop to learn about cutting-edge methods that can be applied to health system data to understand the net value of changes in medical spending over time, and how policymakers can track the effectiveness of policies to increase productivity of medical spending. In addition to several Asian policymakers already involved, virtual workshop participants will have the opportunity to pose questions to the expert speakers about applying these methods to their own health system settings, including advice about data, outcomes, and relevance for specific policy questions.

David Cutler is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics, Harvard University, with secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. He was associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for Social Sciences from 2003-2008. Professor Cutler served on the Council of Economic Advisers and the National Economic Council during the Clinton Administration and has advised several presidential campaigns, including as Senior Health Care Advisor for the Obama Presidential Campaign. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the Institute of Medicine, and he has held positions with the National Institutes of Health and the National Academy of Sciences

Abe Dunn is the Assistant Chief Economist at the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  His work has focused on the production and development of a new satellite account for health care and on evaluating and using alternative data sources for measurement purposes.  The Health Care Satellite Account uses billions of medical care claims from public and private sources to improve measurement for the U.S. health care sector, which allows researchers to analyze spending trends by medical condition.  Dr. Dunn has published research on a range of topics with a particular focus on health economic issues and measurement.  Most recently, his research has focused on measuring both the cost and the quality of medical care treatments. He received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin with a primary focus in the areas of health economics and industrial organization.

Professor Marcia Weaver earned a PhD in economics at the University of Chicago. She specializes in cost-effectiveness analysis and has published 87 peer-reviewed articles. At the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), she leads the research team on cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions to reduce the burden of disease. Prior to joining IHME she served as principal investigator of the Integrated Infectious Disease Capacity Building Evaluation in partnership with the Infectious Diseases Institute in Uganda. In the United States, she published on cost-effectiveness of interventions for people with HIV, chronic mental illness and substance abuse, and on a joint campaign to promote influenza and pneumococcal vaccines. Professor Weaver also has extensive experience with evaluating the effects of clinical training programs in Botswana, Indonesia, Namibia, South Africa, Thailand, and the Caribbean region, and served as a long-term advisor on health system reform to ministries of health in Niger and Central African Republic.