Prof M Sutton, Dr Alexander Turner, Dr Laura Anselmi
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
About the Project
Decentralisation of powers over health and social care is hypothesised to benefit patients and the population through the provision of services tailored to local need. However, previous empirical evidence does not investigate impacts on broader population health outcomes, except for limited mixed evidence on child mortality, nor the specific mechanisms through which health is improved.
One example is the decentralisation of health and social care powers to Greater Manchester (DevoManc) in April 2016, where previous evaluations have only examined impacts on the quality and efficiency of health service provision.
This PhD aims to examine the impact of decentralisation on broader aspects of health and the driving mechanisms.
The specific objectives are:
1. To assess the impacts of DevoManc on both mental and physical health.
2. Develop and test hypothesis about the mechanisms through which DevoManc might lead to changes in health, for example by assessing whether impacts on the quality/efficiency of care provision may contribute to these changes or how demand-side rather than supply-side characteristics affects outcomes.
The PhD will use a range of modern causal inference methods, from those commonly applied in health policy evaluations (such as difference-in-differences methods) to those with still limited applications in this field, including mediation analysis and methods based on geographical movements of individuals. The latter has been developed by Finkelstein an award-winning US economist to disentangle supply and demand sources of geographic variation in health care. This method (over 250 citations and multiple applications since 2016) ) is particularly useful when demand-side variables have substantial effects on outcomes and are unmeasured and not observable to the researcher.
The project will exploit data derived from the largest longitudinal survey of individuals living in private households in the UK, and unique person-level linked administrative data on hospital service utilisation.
The candidate will have a strong background in economics and econometrics.
More broadly the project outputs will contribute to the better design and delivery of decentralisation policies, by highlighting the components that can be more effective in improving population health.
The student will develop his/her project under the supervision of Prof. Matt Sutton, Dr. Laura Anselmi, and Dr. Alexander Turner. He/she will join the Health Organisation, Policy and Economics (HOPE) research group in the Centre for Primary Care and Health Service Research at the University of Manchester.
An advisory team including multidisciplinary expertise will be set up during the first year.
Centre for Primary Care and Health Services Research
https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/research/primary-care/
Institute for Health Policy and Organisation
https://www.alliancembs.manchester.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/institute-for-health-policy-and-organisation/
Matt Sutton
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/matt.sutton.html
Alexander Turner
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/alexander.turner.html
Laura Anselmi
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/laura.anselmi.html
Entry Requirements:
Applicants must have obtained, or be about to obtain, at least an upper second class honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject.
UK applicants interested in this project should make direct contact with the Primary Supervisor to arrange to discuss the project further as soon as possible. International applicants (including EU nationals) must ensure they meet the academic eligibility criteria (including English Language) as outlined before contacting potential supervisors to express an interest in their project. Eligibility can be checked via the University Country Specific information page (https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/international/country-specific-information/).
If your country is not listed you must contact the Doctoral Academy Admissions Team providing a detailed CV (to include academic qualifications – stating degree classification(s) and dates awarded) and relevant transcripts.
Following the review of your qualifications and with support from potential supervisor(s), you will be informed whether you can submit a formal online application.
To be considered for this project you MUST submit a formal online application form - full details on how to apply can be found on the MRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) website www.manchester.ac.uk/mrcdtpstudentships
Funding Notes
Funding will cover UK tuition fees/stipend only. The University of Manchester aims to support the most outstanding applicants from outside the UK. We are able to offer a limited number of bursaries that will enable full studentships to be awarded to international applicants. These full studentships will only be awarded to exceptional quality candidates, due to the competitive nature of this scheme.
Equality, diversity and inclusion is fundamental to the success of The University of Manchester, and is at the heart of all of our activities. The full Equality, diversity and inclusion statement can be found on the website https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/study/research/apply/equality-diversity-inclusion/
References
Walshe K, Lorne C, Coleman A, McDonald R, Turner AJ. (2018). Devolving health and social care: Learning from Greater Manchester. University of Manchester.
Finkelstein A, Gentzkow M, Williams H. (2016), Sources of geographic variation in health care: evidence from patient migration, Q J Econ. 2016 Nov;131(4):1681-1726.
Moura, A., Salm, M., Douven, R. & Remmerswaal, M. (2019), Causes of regional variation in Dutch healthcare expenditures: Evidence from movers, Health Econ, 28(9): -.
S O'Neill, N Kreif, M Sutton, R Grieve. A comparison of methods for health policy evaluation with controlled pre‐post designs. Health services research 2020; 55 (2), 328-338.
Anselmi, L., Binyaruka, P. & Borghi, J. Understanding causal pathways within health systems policy evaluation through mediation analysis: an application to payment for performance (P4P) in Tanzania. Implementation Sci 12, 10 (2017).