HEFUU participates in HEPARD

Prof. Erik Grönqvist (HEFUU Director) and Associate Professor Sophie Langenskiöld, both at Uppsala University, are partners in the EU MSCA programme Health Economic Policy Analysis with Real-World Data (HEPARD). The programme will provide the Centre for Health Economic Research (HEFUU) with two additional doctoral candidates.

The opportunity for people in Europe to live a long and healthy life still depends heavily on income, education, and place of residence. Despite political efforts, the inequalities remain wide. Over the next four years, the international doctoral network HEPARD will strive to address these inequalities. HEPARD’s Principal Investigator is Prof. Martin Karlsson, at the University of Duisburg-Essen. The programme will receive nearly 3.6 million euros in EU funding.

Apart from Uppsala University (Sweden), partners include the RWI Leibniz Institute for Economic Research Essen, the universities of Tilburg (Netherlands), Oslo (Norway), and UBB Cluj (Romania).

The health situation varies greatly across EU member states, often even within the countries themselves. "This includes the quality of medical services, the availability and accessibility of hospitals and doctors, and the financing of healthcare systems. In many places, these differences determine how fair people's health opportunities are and their life expectancy," explains Prof. Grönqvist.

To understand the causes of health inequalities, more knowledge about the social and economic contexts in EU countries is needed. Therefore, researchers from economics, epidemiology, public health, and data science are collaborating in the HEPARD network. "Twelve doctoral students are researching the effects of interventions – such as a sugar tax or nutritional advice – on economic and social outcomes, as well as the financing systems of health insurance, long-term care, and medical care in individual countries. This is done with the help of data analyses, new methods, and collaboration across disciplines," says Prof. Karlsson.

Please find the original press release here (in German).