Health Economics Intern
Intestinal worms (also known as soil-transmitted helminths, or STH) infect hundreds of millions of people all around the world. National programs were initiated to control STH in endemic countries using drugs donated from pharmaceutical companies. Billions of deworming tablets have been distributed, largely through a school-based platform, in the past two decades. Most surveys that have assessed the impact of deworming programs are school-based targeting only school going children. Such surveys do not reflect the true picture of STH status at the community level. To fill this information gap, Children Without Worms (CWW), a program of the Task Force for Global Health at Emory University, has developed a community-based survey methodology so that national STH control programs can assess the STH burden in all at-risk populations targeted by the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Compare the cost of school-based and community-based surveys.
- The student will determine the cost of conducting school-based surveys compared to community-based surveys from the payer perspective.
- The student will identify the major cost drivers and develop cost profiles for both national programs and implementing partners.
- Compare the cost of control strategies informed by community surveys compared to continuing treatment in all endemic areas.
- The student will assess the costs associated with drug distribution under each national program’s current STH control strategy.
- The student will develop cost profiles for the national programs, implementing partners, and the in-kind value of donated drug for each treatment strategy.
- Determine the cost-effectiveness of the different surveillance and control strategies in different epidemiologic contexts.
- The student will use all cost information collected to determine the most economically efficient survey and control strategies for different epidemiologic scenarios.
- The student will create multiple visualizations to demonstrate this across a multi-stakeholder approach to financing, reflecting the cost profiles of the national programs, implementing partners, donors, and pharmaceutical companies.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Must be enrolled as a graduate student in a public health program at an accredited university or college.