Socio-Economic, Environmental Health & Health Services

Activities

Societies are faced with numerous health challenges that are influenced by complex socio-economic and environmental factors. Health disparities persist, with vulnerable populations facing barriers to access and quality of healthcare. Environmental health threats, such as pollution and climate change, pose significant risks to human health. Healthcare systems struggle with issues related to cost, quality, and accessibility of care.
CARES seeks to understand the complex dynamics that impact health and well-being by undertaking research on health disparities, environmental health risks and healthcare system challenges. Our research group emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, leveraging expertise from diverse fields (e.g. health economics, public health, environmental health and epidemiology) to develop innovative strategies that tackle complex health challenges. We are committed to generating impactful research that drives positive change in socio-economic, environmental and health service domains. Our research aims to promote health equity, mitigate environmental health risks, optimize healthcare services and improve health outcomes for all individuals and communities.

Strategic research goals

• Health disparities: There are significant disparities in health outcomes and access to healthcare among different socio-economic and environmental groups. Understanding the underlying factors that contribute to these disparities, such as social determinants of health, economic inequalities and environmental exposures, is critical to developing effective interventions and policies that promote health equity and reduce health disparities.
• Environmental health challenges: Environmental factors, such as air and water pollution, climate change and occupational exposures, have a profound impact on human health. Research in this area can help identify the links between environmental exposures and health outcomes, and inform policies and interventions to mitigate environmental health risks and promote a healthy environment for individuals and communities.
• Health services optimization: Healthcare systems face challenges related to cost, quality and accessibility of care. Research on health services can provide insights into the effectiveness, efficiency and equity of healthcare delivery models, health policies, and healthcare financing, leading to the development of evidence-based strategies to optimize health services, improve healthcare outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.
• Interdisciplinary approach: Socio-economic and environmental health, and health services, are complex and interconnected fields that require an interdisciplinary approach. Integrating expertise from multiple disciplines, including health economics, public health, environmental health, epidemiology and healthcare management, can yield innovative solutions to address complex health challenges and inform evidence-based policies and interventions.
• Population health and well-being: Research on socio-economic and environmental health, and health services, provides critical insights into the determinants of health and the strategies to promote health, well-being and resilience at the individual, community and population levels.
• Policy impact evaluation in health: Policies that address the underlying social and environmental determinants of health, as well as those that target health system performance improvement, are often hard or impossible to evaluate using the randomised controlled trial approach. There is a need for quasi-experimental, “natural experiments”-based evaluation in these important cases.

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