EcoEchoes

Karen and Fanny talk to Niek Mouter, Associate professor at Delft University of Technology and co-founder of the start-up Populytics. We talk about the birth of the participatory value evaluation (PVE), a method which elicits peoples' preferences over the allocation of budgets for different public policies. We discuss quite in detail how to design and conduct PVEs, and briefly go over a specific case study in Peru (which was joint work with Karen).

Guest: Niek Mouter

Hosts: Karen Trujillo Jara and Fanny Tallgren 

Guest: Pieter van Baal, Professor of Public Health Economics, Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management

Timestamps:

(00:45) Pieter’s background and journey into health economics

This episode’s guest is Frédérique Franken, a PhD candidate at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM). She discusses her research on the environmental sustainability of healthcare, focusing on the role of insurer–provider contract negotiations in driving greener practices. The conversation explores how healthcare systems contribute to climate change, the Dutch policy context (including the Green Deal Sustainable Healthcare), and the challenges of translating sustainability goals into concrete actions. Frédérique also reflects on her interdisciplinary path from medicine to health economics and the practical realities of conducting mixed-methods research.

Guest: Frédérique Franken, PhD Candidate, Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management

Timestamps:

(00:50) Background and path from medicine to health economics

This episode’s guest is Elisa de Weerd, a PhD candidate in Health Economics at the Erasmus School of Economics and incoming postdoctoral researcher at Radboud University. She discusses her research on employment and earnings dynamics before and after transgender transitioning using Dutch administrative data. The conversation explores how large-scale administrative datasets can help study labor market inequalities faced by transgender individuals, the methodological challenges of identifying transitioning events in the data, and the implications for understanding economic outcomes and wellbeing. Elisa also reflects on how the project developed during her PhD and on future research directions.

Guest: Elisa de Weerd, PhD Candidate, Erasmus School of Economics

Timestamps:

(00:20) Elisa’s background and research interests

This episode features Johannes Cordier, a visiting PhD student from the University of St. Gallen at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Johannes discusses two papers using Swiss hospital administrative data. The first examines how machine learning methods can identify under-reported sepsis cases, shedding light on how coding practices and reimbursement incentives affect data quality. The second studies how patient placement across hospital wards influences mortality, combining causal machine learning with decision-theoretic approaches to account for capacity constraints.

The episode concludes with reflections on research visits, academic conferences, and practical advice for PhD students navigating research careers and industry pathways.

Guest: Johannes Cordier, Visiting PhD Student (University of St. Gallen)

Hosts: Fanny Tallgren, Prithviraj Basu Mallik

Timestamps:

This episode’s guest is Sanna Azzouz, PhD candidate in Health Technology Assessment at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She discusses her paper "Cost-effectiveness analysis of image-guided ablation versus conventional ablation in patients with recurrent ventricular tachycardia in France: results from the inEurHeart trial".

The conversation covers how ventricular tachycardia develops after myocardial infarction, the clinical and economic trade-offs between different treatment options, and how AI-based imaging can reduce procedure time and costs without compromising patient outcomes. The episode also reflects on the challenges of measuring quality of life in severe cardiac conditions and translating short-term trial results into long-term health economic insights.

In the final part, Sanna shares her experience working at the intersection of healthcare, economics, and AI, and offers personal advice for PhD students on growth, balance, and enjoying the research journey.

Guest: Sanna Azzouz, PhD Candidate, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Timestamps:

In this episode, Stefan Lipman, Assistant Professor at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (Erasmus University Rotterdam), discusses with us how financial incentives can be used to promote healthy behaviour. The conversation covers incentive design (carrots vs. sticks), ethical and equity considerations, funding and cost-effectiveness, the role of structural determinants of health, and the sustainability of behaviour change. In the final part, he shares advice for PhD students and early-career researchers on teaching, presenting, and transitioning to a PhD in Health Economics coming from a different background.

Guest: Stefan Lipman, Assistant Professor, Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

(03:35) Stefan's research background and motivation

(06:08) Why to focus on financial incentives for healthy behaviour?

(09:52) Carrots and sticks: reward-based and loss-based designs

(14:34) Targeting and equity

(24:25) Combining financial incentives

(35:00) Structural influences on healthy behaviour

(59:57) Transitioning into a PhD in health economics coming from a different background

In this episode, we have a casual chat about Prithvi’s experience attending and presenting at the International Long-Term Care Policy Network (ILPN) 2024 Conference in Bilbao. We talk about what the conference was like, from the city to the general vibe, and what it’s like to present research to a mixed audience. More broadly, we chat about navigating big conferences solo, tips for meeting people and starting conversations, and general observations about conference culture. 

Hosts: Prithviraj Basu Mallik & Fanny Tallgren

If you would like to learn more about this conference, click here to go to the ILPN website. 

In this episode of EcoEchoes, we speak with Professor Job van Exel, a health economist, director of research at ESHPM, and the original founder of this podcast. We discuss the challenges in defining and measuring informal caregiving, especially for incorporating it into economic evaluations and then to further down the line inform policy. For example, we talk about the distinctions between objective and subjective burden, and the different assumptions and potential biases in different valuation approaches (proxy good, opportunity cost, contingent valuation, perseverance time). In the final part of the episode, Job reflects on his career trajectory, the role of luck and curiosity, and gives advice for early-stage researchers on career planning and embracing opportunities.

Guest: Job van Exel, Professor of Health Economics at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM), Erasmus University Rotterdam

If you are interested in reading more about this topic, then this paper summarizes work done at ESHPM in terms of measuring and valuing the impact of patient interventions on informal carers. In this paper, you can learn more about the perseverance time measure, and in this paper, how to use a discrete choice experiment to determine the value of an hour of time caregiving. This paper describes how to include broader effects of caregiving in an economic evaluation of a patient intervention using a measure that is compatible with how effects are measured in patients (and the healthcare perspective). This paper shows how to estimate caregiver time using information that is typically available in clinical trials: the EQ-5D scores of patients and their gender.