Bradley Herring, PhD
Health economics is a field of study that applies the theoretical concepts and empirical methods of economic analysis to various issues throughout the health sector, ranging from understanding underlying insurer, provider, and patient behaviors to evaluating various healthcare interventions. The PhD in health economics in the Department of Health Policy and Management prepares doctoral students for conducting innovative research on the economics of health and healthcare.
The health economics curriculum stresses a solid grounding in applied modern microeconomic theory, economic evaluation, quantitative methods, and econometrics applications. It offers a broad exposure to the health economics literature and public health disciplines, and stresses the policy implications of these fields of research. The PhD program offers two concentrations: applied economics and economic evaluation. The courses taken during the first year of the PhD program are the same for both concentrations, while the courses taken during the second year of the PhD program depends on the concentration chosen by the student.
The applied economics concentration focuses on conducting empirical analyses of hypotheses generated by economic theory. The coursework includes PhD-level classes from the Department of Economics at the University’s Homewood Campus. The economic evaluation concentration focuses on state-of-the-art methods for performing economic evaluation of various interventions and includes some advanced courses in biostatistics and epidemiology. | 
