Economic consequences of health inequalities in maternal and neonatal health

background

Maternity services in the UK care for an increasingly diverse population. More than a quarter of live births in England in 2019 were to mothers born outside the UK, 39% of babies belonged to Black, Asian or minority ethnic groups, and 26% were living in the most socioeconomically deprived quintile of areas. Women of Black or Asian ethnicity have higher rates of maternal and perinatal mortality, maternal morbidity, and poorer access to and experiences of care, as do women living in more economically deprived communities. Evidence about the costs to the National Health Service (NHS) of these ethnic and socioeconomic health inequalities is lacking, with limited active research.

Recent guidance for local maternity systems aims to improve equity for mothers and babies from Black, Asian and mixed ethnic minority groups, and improve race equality for staff. Recent evidence synthesis exercises have identified areas and potential interventions that could improve outcomes for these groups. If these interventions are shown to represent a cost-effective use of healthcare resources, they may also lead to reductions in costs associated with inequalities in this context. 

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE, RESEARCH METHODS AND TRAINING

This studentship will provide experience and training in literature review methods, data management and statistical methods to handle larges datasets including Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), applied econometric methods to handle resource use and cost information using panel data and statistical methods to evaluate differences across regions in the UK. The student will conduct a programme of work that will involve:

1. A comprehensive review of the literature to identify previous studies assessing the costs of health inequalities in the UK and elsewhere.
2. The use of routine datasets to quantify the likely costs of maternal health inequalities in the UK.
3. The use of appropriate econometric and statistical techniques to understand whether there are within-country differences associated with the cost of health inequalities in the UK.

FIELD WORK, SECONDMENTS, INDUSTRY PLACEMENTS AND TRAINING

Training in advanced statistics and econometric methods, programming, and scientific writing will be provided. Candidate will be encouraged to attend seminars, workshops and courses offered by the Department and the University. There will be opportunities to present work-in-progress work to colleagues in the department and present research outputs at relevant international/national conferences.

PROSPECTIVE  STUDENT

This project would suit a candidate with a strong interest in reducing ethnic and socioeconomic health inequalities. The candidate will have a background in epidemiology, health economics or health policy with a proven record of quantitative skills (mathematics, statistics, economics and epidemiology) and experience in a research environment in an academic or private sector.