Professor Jo Coast joins CLAHRC West as Deputy Director (Research)

Professor Jo Coast has joined CLAHRC West as Deputy Director (Research). Jo is Professor in the Economics of Health and Care at the University of Bristol. She has published more than 120 research papers in academic journals and has received major grants from the Medical Research Council and the European Research Council. She is also Senior Editor, Health Economics for Social Science and Medicine.

Jo qualified with a BA (Econ) (Hons) in Economics in 1988 and an MSc in health economics in 1990, both from the University of York, and a PhD in social medicine from the University of Bristol in 2000. Jo worked at Bristol’s Department of Social Medicine from 1990 until 2005, and at the Health Economics Unit in the University of Birmingham from 2005 until 2015.  She rejoined the University of Bristol in November 2015.

Jo’s research interests lie in the theory underlying economic evaluation (including capability), developing broader measures of outcome for use in economic evaluation (including measures of capability), health care decision making, the economics of antimicrobial resistance and the organisation of care. She also has a methodological interest in the use of qualitative methods in health economics and is recognised as an international authority in this field. She has published extensively in all of these areas.

She will be contributing to all aspects of research at CLAHRC West, and will be taking a particular interest in the work of the efficiency team as joint theme lead with Will Hollingworth.

CLAHRC West Director Professor Jenny Donovan said:

“I am delighted that Professor Jo Coast has agreed to take on the role of CLAHRC West Deputy Director (Research) with immediate effect. Jo has recently moved back to Bristol and taken up a post as Professor in the Economics of Health and Care at the University of Bristol. She will be contributing to all aspects of research in the CLAHRC and taking a specific interest in the work of the efficiency team, particularly in relation to the challenges of providing optimal care within a fixed budget, an area in which she has had a long-standing interest.”

Jo said:

“I am extremely pleased to have been appointed to this role. The CLAHRCs do an extraordinarily valuable job in conducting applied health research that generates improved services and outcomes for patients. This focus aligns well with my own key research areas of measuring wellbeing, priority setting and the economics of service organisation and antimicrobial resistance. I am delighted that I will be able to contribute to the work of CLAHRC West over the coming years.”