The Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science is part of a winning consortium to establish a £3.72 million REAL research unit for the Health Foundation that will transform our understanding of health and social care.
Two REAL Research Units, one in Oxford and another in York, will work together with the Health Foundation’s REAL Centre (Research and Economic Analysis for the Long term) to carry out high-quality research on the demand for, and supply of, health and social care.
The Oxford research unit has been awarded £3.725 million of funding from the Health Foundation for a seven-year programme of research starting in 2023.
Led by the Nuffield Department of Population Health, the Oxford research unit is an intra-university collaboration with Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Department of Economics, and Centre for Experimental Social Sciences alongside the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York.
Professor Philip Clarke, Director of the Health Economics Research Centre at the Nuffield Department of Population Health and lead of the Oxford research unit, said: ‘We are delighted to be part of the ambitious REAL Research Units programme and are looking forward to working in collaboration with the REAL Centre to develop evidence to address the long-standing challenges facing the health and care system, and to transform the understanding of demand for health and care in England.’
The Oxford research unit aims to improve our understanding of health and social care demand by analysing factors like demographics, technology, and public expectations to explore three main themes: understanding the factors influencing healthcare demand, assessing the sustainability and distribution of demand, and examining the economics of demand and strategies to manage uncertainty through social insurance.
Professor Melinda Mills, CO-I of the grant and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, concludes: ‘Instead of relying on aggregate trends, Oxford’s REAL research unit will use multiple types of individual-level data to analyse the demand for health and social care to make informed and real improvements to policy planning and action.’
