Author corinnahentschker

Meeting round-up: CINCH Academy 2018

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On 18-23 June, researchers, coming from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, were gathered together at the annual CINCH summer school, an academic program for early stage researchers in health economics. The fifth CINCH Academy was held in Essen, Germany, by one of Germany’s leading health economics centres – CINCH. The institute brings together the region’s most notable health economics institutions: RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf.

This year the focus of the Academy was hospital economics and mental health. On the first days of the event, Luigi Siciliani (University of York) gave a very informative block of lectures on hospital competition as well as currently often-debated quality of health care, waiting times and patient’s choice. To strengthen the learning process, after each topic, participants were requested to answer a set of questions and engaged in discussions that helped to better understand the lecture materials. After a productive first block of lectures, Richard G. Frank (Harvard University) provided a comprehensive insight into the economics of mental health and emphasized the distinguishing marks of topics in mental health such as salient features of mental illness, the role of government, mental health illness protection and mental health policy. Encouraged by the lecturer and with a high interest, each participant took part in the discussion and shared their knowledge about specific situations and handlings in their home countries.

In addition to the educational material, each participant had an opportunity to present his or her current research topic and be discussed by another participant. The large range of topics, such as the influence of crime on residents’ mental wellbeing, the influence of unpaid care on formal care utilization and the impact of increased hospital expenditures on population mortality, created a very interactive atmosphere for discussions. Senior researcher Daniel Howdon (University of Leeds) chaired the paper session and gave additional helpful comments for each presenter.

Apart from an interesting academic program, the summer school further fostered an interaction between participants in several social activities organized by the CINCH team. Besides several dinners after intensive days, participants had a chance to participate in a specially organized city tour in Essen and visit the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex (Zeche Zollverein) that is inscribed into the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The large industrial monument is often named as the cultural heart of the Ruhr Area. After a guided tour through the complex, all participants once again gathered to have a dinner at a traditional restaurant of this region. Social activities not only allowed to further discuss topics of the lectures but also to share different personal experiences about pursuing a doctoral degree in different countries and about other daily interests for each early-stage researcher such as intensive learning, travelling to conferences, obtaining datasets, etc.

On the last day of the summer school, organizers announced the Best Paper Award, that was awarded to Elizabeth Lemmon (University of Stirling) for her research paper “Utilisation of personal care services in Scotland: the influence of unpaid carers”. Besides the financial reward, her work will be published in the CINCH Working Paper Series.

CINCH Academy was an excellent opportunity to deepen the knowledge and insights in hospital and mental health economics. Our special thanks goes to lecturers, Luigi Siciliani and Richard G. Frank, to paper sessions chair Daniel Howdon, as well as to the great organizational team Christoph Kronenberg and Annika Jäschke.

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