The Economics of Perinatal and Paediatric Healthcare

From 2006 to 2010 Dr Stavros Petrou was based in HERC and running a programme of work on the health economics of perinatal and paediatric healthcare with a programme award from the MRC.

The programme contained a strong element of methodological development, focussing particularly on the measurement of outcomes for children, health status measures for children, and the evaluation of the long term consequences of children’s health conditions. Income inequalities and the assessment of their causes and policy implications was another theme in the work. Trial-based economic evaluations were also performed.

Current and recent work is described on the following pages:

Outcomes, health status measurement, and inequalities

• Empirical validity of the EQ5D and SF6D in a general population 
• Multi-attribute utility measures in the perinatal and paediatric context
• Social capital and its relationship with preference-based measures of health status
• Health inequalities – using the Oxford Record Linkage Study to assess socioeconomic inequalites for children and for mothers.
• Child development and family income in the United Kingdom: does money matter?
• Preference-based Health Utilities Index scores for childhood conditions
• The long-term economic costs of preterm birth
• Measuring the effects of childhood hearing impairment

Trial-based evaluations

• Cost-effectiveness and women’s preferences for alternative management methods for first trimester miscarriage. Economic evaluation alongside the MIST trial.
• Cost-effectiveness of intra-nasal steroids in 4-11 year old children with persistent bilateral otitis media with effusion in primary care. Economic evaluation alongside the GNOME trial.

Stavros Petrou continues to work in the field at the University of Warwick, and in Oxford health economics research continues in the NPEU.