Health Economics Collaborative Research Projects In 2004, funds totalling more than $5.4m were attracted by Dr. Luke Connelly to the Health Economics (HE) program at the Centre of National Research on Disability and Rehabilitation Medicine (CONROD), The University of Queensland. The health economics program was involved in applications to fund three major collaborative initiatives, one of which involves the establishment of the new Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH). Dr Connelly s teaching activities at the School of Economics include: ECON7810 Health Economics & Evaluation ECON7830 Health Economics & Policy ECON7900 Special Unit (Health Insurance & Health Care Financing) Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health The HE program s successful funding submissions included a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) application to establish, in conjunction with partners at the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Western Australia (UWA) the new Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH). The $4.5m award to ACERH was the largest grant provided under the program. The Chief Investigators (CIs) are James Butler (National Centre of Epidemiology and Population Health, ANU), Luke Connelly (CONROD, UQ), Alexandra Sidorenko (NCEPH, ANU), Warwick McKibbin (Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, ANU, Brookings Institution USA) and D Arcy Holman (School of Population Health, UWA). Data partners include Medibank Private Limited (MPL), the Health Benefits Fund (HBF, Western Australia) and the Data Linkage Unit in the West Australian Department of Health. ACERH will operate as a virtual centre with physical sites at The University of Queensland (UQ), The Australian National University (ANU) and The University of Western Australia (UWA). The program of research will focus on three themes: Ageing Health Insurance Economic Burden of Illness and Injury. An important resource that will underpin the work is the population dataset that has been constructed for Western Australia. The dataset involves linked unit-record data, at the level of the individual, on public in- and out-of-hospital services dating back to the pre-medicare period as well as more recent data on pharmaceuticals use. In addition, data sources such as police crash data have previously been linked to this dataset. Under an established and approved protocol that is already in place in WA, ACERH proposes also to link private health insurer data from MPL and HBF to the public dataset. Together, these two insurers have approximately 80 per cent of the private health insurance market share in Western Australia and the resulting dataset will represent a unique resource for health economics research. The CONROD component of the research program involves at least two full-time PhD scholarships, one Senior Research Fellow post, one Research Fellow post and one half-time research assistant position. Whiplash Associated Disorder (WAD): Randomised Controlled Trial Together with the School of Rehabilitation Sciences (Jull, Sterling) and the Social and Behavioural Sciences Program at CONROD (Kenardy), the CONROD Health Economics Program (Connelly) was part of a successful grant application to the NHMRC for funding to conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) on whiplash associated disorder (WAD). The purpose of the RCT is to investigate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a stratified pragmatic management approach to reduce the incidence of progression of acute whiplash injuries to chronicity. The management approach will be directed by the presenting pain, musculoskeletal and psychological features and compared with usual 1
care. The trial will be conducted over a three-year period (2005-2007) and was awarded a grant of $378,450. Whiplash Associated Disorder: Prognostic Follow-Up Study Another collaborative initiative between these researchers (Sterling, Jull, Kenardy, Connelly) was funded under the ARC-Linkage scheme. This international, prospective, multi-centre study, aims to 1. Validate a set of measures of physical and psychological impairment identified as prognostic indicators of outcome following whiplash injury in a large multicentre international cohort. 2. Conduct the first economic health production study on WAD to examine the relationships between health outcomes and their determinants (including service utilisation, patient characteristics and insurance status). 3. Study the relationships between claim propensity and payout magnitudes for whiplash injuries in Queensland. 4. Study the correspondence, or otherwise, of the economic costs and payout magnitudes for WAD in terms of functional recovery measures (recovered, mild pain and disability, moderate/severe pain and disability). Under the ARC-Linkage scheme, $522,011 was provided to conduct this study. Half of this amount was provided in cash and kind by the Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC) and Suncorp-Metway, with the remainder supplied via the ARC. 2
CONNELLY PUBLICATIONS (2004-) CHAPTERS IN PEER-REVIEWED MONOGRAPHS Connelly, L.B., Woolf, A. and Brooks, P. (2006) Cost-effectiveness of Interventions for Musculoskeletal Conditions, Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2 nd edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. (In Press) Connelly, L.B. (2005) Student Characteristics and Academic Success: An Econometric Study of the Performance of 'Equity Groups', in Milter, R.G, Perotti, V.S., Segers, Mien S.R. (eds) (2005) Educational Innovation in Economics and Business, Vol.9, Springer, Verlag, (In Press). Connelly, L.B. (2004) "Assertion-Reason Assessment in Formative and Summative Tests: Results from Two Graduate Case Studies", in Ottewill, R., Borredon, L., Falque, L. Macfarlane, B. and Wall, A. (eds) (2004) Educational Innovation in Economics and Business VIII: Pedagogy, Technology and Innovation, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 359-78. CHAPTERS IN TEXTBOOKS Miles, K.A. and Connelly, L.B. (2003) Cost-Effectiveness Studies of PET in Oncology, in Oehr, P. (ed.) (2003) PET and PET-CT in Oncology, Springer, Berlin, pp. 321-30. Connelly, L.B. (1998) "Aspects of Health Economics" in Clinton, M. and Scheiwe, D. (eds) (1998) Management in the Australian Health Care Industry, 2nd edn, Addison- Wesley-Longman, Melbourne, pp.54-78. ARTICLES IN PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS Wright, O.R.L., Connelly, L.B. and Capra, S. (2006) Consumer Evaluation of Hospital Foodservice Quality: An Empirical Investigation, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, (In Press). Wright, O.R.L., Connelly, L.B. and Capra, S. (2005) Important aspects of Health Care Food Services for Older Consumers, Health Expectations (Submitted). Aitken, L.M., Davey, T., Ambrose, J., Connelly, L.B., Swanson, C. and Bellamy, N. (2005) Predictors of Outcome in Injured People, Journal of Trauma, (Submitted). Connelly, L.B. (2005) Earning and Conversion Handicaps and the Welfare Economics of Disability, European Journal of Health Economics, (Submitted). Connelly, L.B. (2005) Teaching and Building Capacity in Health Economics, Australasian Journal of Economic Education, (Submitted). Brown III, H.S. and Connelly, L.B. (2005) Market Failure in Long-Term Private Health Insurance Markets: A Proposed Solution, Applied Economics Letters, Vol.12(5): 281-84. Brown III, H.S. and Connelly, L.B. (2005) Lifetime Cover in Private Insurance Markets, International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics, Vol.5, No.1, pp.75-88. Connelly, L.B. (2004) "Economics and 'Health Promotion'", European Journal of Health Economics, Vol.5, No.3, pp.236-242. 3
Connelly, L.B. and Doessel, D.P. (2004) Health Status and Medical Expenditures: A Story of Increasing or Decreasing Returns?, Australian Economic Review, Vol.37, No.1 (March), pp.12-30. PAPERS IN EDITED, NON-REFEREED OUTLETS Connelly, L.B., Butler, J.R.G., Brown III, H.S. and Sidorenko, A.A. (2004) Health Care Financing and Private Health Insurance in Australia (Invited Papers), Geneva Association Information Newsletter, Issue 11, October 2004, pp.4-7. 4
CONNELLY PRESENTATIONS (2004-) INVITED PAPERS Connelly, L.B. and Supangan, R. (2005) The Cost of Road Traffic Crashes in Australia: An Analysis by State and Territory, AUSTRAUMA 2005, Paramatta, 25-26 February 2005. Connelly, L.B. (2004) What Constitutes Efficiency (Panel Member), X Accident Compensation Seminar of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia, Gold Coast, 28 November 1 December 2004. Connelly, L.B. and Supangan, R. (2004) The Cost of Trauma in Queensland, Australasian-Pacific Foundation for Trauma Education and Clinical Standards, Sydney, 17 December 2004. Connelly, L.B. and Supangan, R. (2004) The Cost of Trauma, The Bone and Joint Decade 2000-2010 For the Prevention and Treatment of Musculoskeletal Disorders Research Day, Brisbane, 21 August 2004. OTHER PRESENTATIONS AND PAPERS Brown III, H.S. and Connelly, L.B. (2004) Lifetime Cover in Private Insurance Markets, A Paper presented at the 26 th Australian Conference of Health Economists, Melbourne, September 30-October 1, 2004. Connelly, L.B., Cameron, C., Kendall, E. and Muenchberger, H. (2004) Claims for Economic Loss: An Analysis of Insurance Claim Propensity and Claim Size for Injured Road Users, A Paper Presented to the 31 st Seminar of the European Group of Risk and Insurance Economists (EGRIE), Marseille, September 18-20, 2004 Connelly, L.B. (2004) The Welfare Economics of Injury and Rehabilitation, Disability and Compensation, Second International Forum on Disability Management (IFDM), Maastricht, September 13-15, 2004. Connelly, L.B., Cameron, C., Kendall, E. and Muenchberger, H. (2004) Claims for Economic Loss: An Analysis of Insurance Claim Propensity and Claim Size for Injured Road Users, A Paper Presented to the 5 th European Conference of Health Economists, London, September 8-11, 2003. Brown III, H.S. and Connelly, L.B. (2004) Guaranteed Renewability and Lifetime Cover, A Paper Presented at the Third International Conference on Health Economics, Management and Policy, Athens, June 3-5, 2004. Wright, O.R.L. and Connelly (2004) Styling Healthcare Foodservices for an Ageing Population: Insights from Preliminary Satisfaction Studies. A Paper Presented at CONROD Convocation, May 25, 2004. Connelly, L.B., Cameron, C., Kendall, E. and Muenchberger, H. (2004) Claims for Economic Loss: An Analysis of Insurance Claim Propensity and Claim Size for Injured Road Users, A Paper presented at CONROD Convocation, May 25, 2004. Connelly, L.B. (2004) The Welfare Economics of Injury and Rehabilitation, Disability and Compensation, A Paper presented at CONROD Convocation, May 25, 2004. Connelly, L.B., Ambrose, J.E., Aitken, L.M. and Bellamy, N. (2004) Predictors of Outcome in Injured People, A Paper presented at CONROD Convocation, May 25, 2004. 5
Swanson, C. and Connelly, L.B. (2004) Barriers to injury management and rehabilitation outcomes: A Conceptual Framework and Strategic Plan, A Paper presented at CONROD Convocation, May 25, 2004. Davey T., Aitken L.M., Ambrose J.E., Connelly L.B., Swanson C. and Bellamy N. (2004) Use of the SF-36 to Determine the Health Related Quality of Life of Adults in Queensland Following Hospitalisation for the Treatment of Injury, A Paper presented at CONROD Convocation, May 25, 2004. DISCUSSANT COMMENTARIES Connelly, L.B. (2004) Discussion of Messinis, G. R&D Price Inflation, Real BERD and Innovation: Pharmaceuticals, OECD 1980-2000, A Paper Presented at the 26 th Australian Conference of Health Economists, Melbourne, September 30-October 1, 2004. Connelly, L.B. (2004) Discussion of Ordaz Sanz, J.A. et al. The Main Determinants of the Number of Accidents in Automobile Insurance: An Empirical Analysis, A Paper Presented at the 31 st Seminar of the European Group of Risk and Insurance Economists, Marseille, September 28-20, 2004. 6