UG School of Public Health launches health economics hubs in Ghana

The Department of Health Policy Planning and Management, School of Public Health, University of Ghana in collaboration with the Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has launched the establishment of the Regional Health Economics, Policy, and Systems (RHEPS) hubs in Ghana.

The hub is expected to strengthen in-country and regional capacity for generating, synthesizing, and use of health economics and financing evidence for healthcare resource allocation decisions and policy.

The Dean of the School of Public Health, Prof Kwasi Torpey, the primary goal of the Hubs is to strengthen in-country and regional capacity for generating, synthesizing, and using health economics and financing evidence in healthcare resource allocation decisions and policy.

He stated that the Hubs also seek to strengthen the capacity for mathematical, epidemiological, economic, and geospatial modeling to support decision-making.

The RHEPS Centres are expected to among other things:

a. Work in collaboration with their respective Ministries of Health in both countries to ensure that the evidence produced is responsive to the policymakers’ evidence needs and relevant to their decision context which in turn will enhance evidence uptake in policy-making.

b. Develop and operationalize contextualized economic-epidemiological-demographic-and Geospatial models to inform priority-setting decisions about SRH, MNCH, NCDs, and other health services in Ghana and potentially within countries in Africa, while working closely with policy and program implementers to enhance evidence uptake in policy making and implementation.

The Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Asiedu Bekoe, who also graced the ceremony said a critical gap in the country’s efforts during COVID-19 and current efforts to improve the health of the population is appreciating the economics, financing, and evaluation of these interventions and plans such as the creation of the hubs.

He said: “During the response, the GHS worked with the School of Public Health to develop and use modeling in our work. In view of this, the Public Health Division sees tremendous opportunity in these Regional Health Economics, Policy, and Systems Hubs to support the costing of national, regional, and continental public health security plans and interventions and develop integrated models that will be key to our preparedness and response to current and future public health threats.”

The launch which took place on September 29, 2023, had in attendance partners from the Ghana Health Service, the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organisation, and other partner institutions, the Faculty of the University of Ghana, Partners from Africa CDC; and Dean and Faculty from the University of Rwanda among others.

SSD/NOQ

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