What attracted you to the health metrics field?
I started out college really interested in medical school, and I decided to do the double major as an intellectual enterprise. I really fell in love with economics, especially when exposed to behavioral economics in a class I took called Psychology and Economics. I could see how powerful it could be to use economics as a quantitative way to predict human behavior. It is a much different way of solving problems than in biology. I decided to take a year off after graduating and tried to find a position that would let me build on these different perspectives of solving problems.
What work are you doing at IHME?
I’m in the Costing group, which is doing work that is part of the Disease Control Priorities Network. We need to estimate the cost effectiveness of various interventions, such as tuberculosis treatments, in order to inform policy priorities and setting. To do this, we must evaluate what the costs would be to implement interventions in different countries, given their specific cultural and health system challenges. For TB, you would need to have certain health facilities, staff, and then the treatments themselves. If you want to set that up in a developing country, how much would that cost? Using US hospital data, we are trying to create a survey that we can apply across nations. What are the most significant influences on cost? Inpatient days and physician hours can be important factors in costs, but what role do radiological services, surgical services, and diagnostic testing play? We are developing pilot surveys in a few countries, and we are going to improve the surveys as we go. I feel really fortunate to be at the forefront of this project and watch it unfold from its early stages.
How do you think your experience at IHME will contribute to your future work?
Being in the IHME fellowship program has expanded my view of the most important things that need to be considered when policymakers try to improve people’s health. What has been the most eye-opening are all these challenges regarding how to measure these quantities, as well as what should be measured. If we can find ways to measure numbers such as mortality, disease burden, and intervention efficacy in countries where so much is unknown right now, we will really be able to influence the health decisions that people make in their own lives. I’m applying to medical school right now. When I started down this path, I had a very narrow view of medicine as only treatment. This experience has broadened my perspective on what goes into health at the inpidual level and at the international level. This foundation has made me want to go into medicine even more now, as I would love to have the opportunity to experience firsthand how to bring health to these underserved populations.
