Health Services and Policy

Older patients and families could pay the price of slowing health care spending
Canada and British Columbia are no exceptions to the worldwide trend of smaller increases to health-care spending. But the impacts of slowing growth in health-care spending should be examined, according to new research by Associate Professor Kimberlyn McGrail. Photo credit: StockSnap/Pixabay Read More
Drug costs vary by more than 600% in study of 10 high-income countries
Costs for prescription drugs in the largest categories of primary care medicines varied by more than 600 per cent among 10 high-income countries with universal health care, according to joint research by SPPH and Harvard Medical School. Read More
SPPH Faculty awarded six CIHR Project Grants, one Bridge Award
School of Population and Public Health faculty have won six Canadian Health Institutes of Research (CIHR) Project Grants and one Bridge Award in the Fall 2016 competition. Read More
SPPH co-authored paper wins Article of the Year
A paper co-authored by School of Population and Public Health (SPPH) researchers has won the CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR) 2016-17 Article of the Year award. Read More
Universal public coverage of essential medicines would improve access, save billions
Publicly funding essential medicines could cover the cost of nearly half of all prescriptions in Canada, removing financial barriers for Canadians while saving $3 billion per year. Read More

The Division of Health Services and Policy encompasses a range of disciplines and fields including health services research, health policy, health economics, health systems and health ethics. Almost all areas of health care fall under scope and in many cases an applied lens contributes to collaboration with clinicians, health care managers and policy makers. The Division welcomes inquiry about the full range of public policies as they relate to social determinants of health, as encapsulated in the “Health in All Policies”.

Activities within the Division address the organization, regulation, accessibility and utilization of health care resources, and the resulting costs and effects. Topics of interest include large data administration, health and pharmaceutical policy, health reform, organizational change, health care financing, cost-effectiveness, health technologies, program evaluation, priority setting, quality and outcomes of health care, health information, social determinants, health disparities and knowledge translation.

Faculty within the Division contribute to teaching in all of the graduate programs within the School and are actively engaged with graduate students in both supervisory and advisory capacities. Prospective students are encouraged to read the faculty bios to get a sense of individual research interests. The Division is also home to the Health Economics concentration within the MSc program.

A number of research centres also are associated with the Division, including the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research (CHSPR), the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcomes Sciences (CHEOS), the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation (C2E2), the Centre for Applied Ethics (CAE), the Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), and the National Core for Neuroethics.

Faculty