I was thrilled to help organise a successful Health Economics and Policy meeting on 24th February 2020 at MLW offices in Blantyre, Malawi. The meeting which was themed around ‘priority decision making in global health: health economics and the essential health package in Malawi’ aimed to bring together health economists working in the Health Economics and Policy Unit (HEPU) based at the College of Medicine (COM), the Malawi Ministry of Health, and the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme (MLW).
The topics that were discussed by the health policy and health system researchers present during the meeting included; sharing ongoing health economics (HE) research within the different institutions, identifying synergies and opportunities for future collaboration in HE research, and increasing understanding on which criteria decision makers use for making decisions for components of the essential health package. The meeting resulted in the development of the Malawi Health Economics network (MwHEN).
I was able to make a presentation on the health economics of lung disease study in Malawi. In addition, Dr. Gerald Manthalu & Dr. Dominic Nkhoma gave a riveting presentation on Essential Health Package in Malawi, what it covers and why.
Thanks go to Dr. Marlen Chawani for ensuring that the meeting was a success and Prof Bertie Squire for providing excellent oversight.