Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, the scientific community has worked around the clock to produce evidence to support decision-makers in all aspects of pandemic management. As of April 2021, there are more than 78,000 articles published in peer reviewed journals and pre-prints (as indexed by collabovid.org). Those unprecedented collective research efforts have supported decisionmakers across the world on some of the toughest choices in decades, from closing economies, to procuring vaccines and medical supplies and equipment, and preparing for the uncertain year ahead.
Health economics can support decisionmakers in appraising different investments and policy options, considering trade-offs, as well as adopting a “whole of health” approach to the response. This is why we have created the new C19economics.org platform: to support those who are generating, analysing, and utilising health economics evidence to tackle COVID-19 globally, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Since its launch, the platform attracted on average 1,600 unique visitors per month from across the globe. More than 100 participants from across the world to join us on our two events: "Macroeconomic and Health Impact of COVID: The Meeting of Two Communities" and "Estimating Clinical Management Costs of COVID-19 in LMICs."
The C19economics.org platform
C19Economics.org was created to curate experiences, data, tools, and analyses; facilitate the meeting of researchers and decisionmakers; and support health economists to generate evidence for policy across LMIC settings in a demand-driven and scientifically robust fashion. Read more about who we are here.
The new version of C19economics.org features the following:
- A curated repository of evidence building from the following databases: the National Institutes of Health (NiH) iSearch COVID-19 portfolio, American Economic Association Econlit, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the Center for Global Development. We screened 12,000 articles to pick out health economics resources across major themes (economic evaluation, macroeconomic impact, costing, or equity). We will aim to update this repository once a month. The repository will allow keyword searches, and resources have been indexed by country, country income group, and area of interest, and has the ability to simplify literature searches and identification of relevant literatures to a country or a specific query.
- A news and blogs page, which will feature evidence summaries, blogposts, and other contributions from our members.
- A discussion forum (open to all, although sign up is required)
- A phonebook for researchers and decisionmakers to enter their current work and link to their personal page.
- A methods and tools page, featuring COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 resources that will support the production of health economics evidence or policy planning.
- Events announcements, such as webinars organised by our community or external events of interest.
Strengthening our new community of health economics
Please visit the new C19economics.org and be connected to other researchers and decisionmakers.
C19economics.org has been put together by a group of health economics practitioners, coordinated by iDSI (the International Decision Support Initiative – led by the Center for Global Development and the Health Intervention and Technology Appraisal Program -HITAP-) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). C19economics.org is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UK Aid, and the Wellcome Trust.
CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise.
CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.
