Research Assistant in Health Economics

A part-time position is available for an individual to be appointed at the level of Research Assistant in Health Economics. The successful applicant will work with Dr Christos Grigoroglou and Professor Katherine Payne on a programme of work quantifying costs of cancer care in England by stage of disease using routine data.

There are increased research efforts to design strategies to prevent cancer and find cancer early in the disease process. Finding cancer earlier is a good thing as it means treatment can be started that is more likely to be effective. The strategies to prevent or find cancer early will have a cost to the healthcare system. It is possible that investing in these strategies is worthwhile as the cost of subsequent treatment will be offset. To be able to evaluate whether treatment costs are offset it is necessary to know how much it costs the healthcare system to find (diagnose) and treat cancer for the different stages of the disease. This study wants to describe the different types of costs to the NHS to treat four exemplar types of cancer (lung, breast, cervical, skin). We will look at the types of cancer by the different stages of disease (one to four). It is likely that the different stages of cancer disease will incur different costs to the healthcare system. The study will show whether finding cancer earlier in the stage of disease (stage one or two) costs the healthcare system less than later stages (three or four). This information on the cost of treatment of cancer by stage of disease is vital to feed into economic studies evaluating the costs and benefits of strategies designed to prevent or detect cancer earlier.

There are three objectives: (i) To quantify the relevant costs associated with the treatment (e.g. prescription data) of people with lung and breast cancer and by stage of disease using routine data. (ii) To identify whether socioeconomic status, defined by index of multiple deprivation, is associated with the cost of treating cancer by stage of disease. (iii) To inform how data can be assimilated such that they are suitable for use in model-based cost-effectiveness analysis to estimate the expected incremental costs of adaptations to lung and breast cancer screening programmes. The research assistant employed on this study will mainly contribute to collecting, assimilating and analysing unit cost data from all the available sources for UK health care to meet objectives (i) and (iii). This project is led by Katherine Payne, Professor of Health Economics at the Manchester Centre for Health Economics, The University of Manchester. It involves working with health economists, health services researchers, and data scientists.

As an equal opportunities employer we welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of age, sex, gender (or gender identity), ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and transgender status. All appointments are made on merit.

Our University is positive about flexible working – you can find out more here

Hybrid working arrangements may be considered.

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: Dr Christos Grigoroglou

Email: christos.grigoroglou@manchester.ac.uk

General enquiries:

Email: recruitmentservices.people@manchester.ac.uk

Technical support:

0161 850 2004 jobseekersupport.jobtrain.co.uk/support/home

This vacancy will close for applications at midnight on the closing date.

Please see the link below for the Further Particulars document which contains the person specification criteria.