Dissertation in Health Economics and Decision Science (GLBH0032)

The Dissertation or Research Project is student-led, with support from a designated academic tutor. Some students will also have input from an industry-based mentor if their project is undertaken as part of an industry placement. The dissertation process enables you to investigate and apply health economics and decision science methods to real-world problems in global health research and to present your findings in a written report. Some students will have the opportunity to conduct their research project together with an industry or academic partner. These collaborations will involve partners in the UK and internationally.

On successful completion of the dissertation, you should be able to:

Independently identify a gap in knowledge.
	Understand how to formulate a research question to fill a knowledge gap.
	Have the skills to work independently to answer a research question, to a deadline.
	Know how to communicate the findings effectively, to a diverse audience or evidence-users.
The Dissertation is open to all UCL MSc Health Economics and Decision Science students who have or are in the process of completing the eight taught modules.

This is a student led process. Quality will be assured through three processes:

An introductory seminar explaining the purpose of the dissertation, highlighting appropriate referencing methods and explaining the supervision process.
	Series of seminars when students will be asked to report on their plans and progress.
	One-to-one supervision by an academic with some specialisation in the field of study.
Selected reading list

Dependent on project area

Health needs assessment|health innovation|participatory methods

This module will provide broad base of knowledge and understanding of relevant skills required to conduct a health needs assessment and to the understanding of...

Approaches to Health Innovation and Needs Assessments (GBSH0027)

This module will provide broad base of knowledge and understanding of relevant skills required to conduct a health needs assessment and to the understanding of approaches to health innovation and intervention development and evaluation.

You will be provided with an overview of Health Needs Assessments using case studies from the NHS and overseas. You will learn how to conduct a health needs assessment collating evidence from an epidemiological, policy, community and individual perspective and explore this in a practical session using publicly available data.

The importance of participatory working and methods will be explored, with examples from the UK and overseas. You will have the opportunity to learn about skills for successful collaborative leadership and the importance of involving policy and other stakeholders and translation of knowledge to population, policy and practice.

You will learn the life cycle and frameworks for intervention development and testing and about adaptation of interventions from one setting to another. Concepts of global health, local context will be explored. You will be introduced to the range of interdisciplinary field methodologies required in health innovation and intervention development and testing, including mixed methods approaches and implementation science frameworks.

You will learn what health and public health innovation means and differences between profit and not-for-profit innovation. You will explore using examples why and when innovations fail (at development, execution, scale-up etc). You will be asked to identify and critically assess an example of a failed innovation from across the world, to analyse, dissect, process and digest the innovation. Then write about it and present it internally to peers.