Programme of methodological and applied research on economic aspects of perinatal and paediatric health care

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Strategies to improve the health and broader well-being of pregnant women, mothers and children should necessarily be underpinned by a strong evidence base. Scientific lines of enquiry from a number of disciplines have, to varying degrees, supported evidence-informed policy and practice in perinatal and paediatric health care. Health economics evidence has similarly made an important and relevant contribution to decisions concerning the production, distribution and evaluation of health and health care for pregnant women, mothers and children in the UK. As a relatively new discipline, however, there remain important developments and refinements to be made in several areas of health economic theory and methodology. Moreover, there remain a large number of areas of perinatal and paediatric health care where health economic techniques could usefully contribute to an efficient and equitable allocation of scarce resources. I propose to conduct a programme of methodological and applied research on economic aspects of perinatal and paediatric health care that encompasses: measurement of preference-based outcomes in the perinatal and paediatric contexts; valuation of health gains in the perinatal and paediatric contexts; cost measurement and valuation in the perinatal and paediatric contexts; and the cost-effectiveness of prevention and treatment strategies for preterm birth.