Jason Madan

Valuing Public Mental Health and Wellbeing for Economic Evaluation

The benefits from improving well-being and diverse and wide-ranging. I argue that we will under-invest in interventions that achieve such improvements unless we fully include these impacts in economic evaluation, and present recent research that aims to make it easier to do so. Jason Madan is Professor of Health Economics at Warwick Medical School. His career has involved applied and methodological research in the economic evaluation of healthcare. His recent work has focused increasingly on extending this to mental health and wellbeing, with a particular interest in the measurement and valuation of wellbeing improvements.

Catherine Negus

Defining wellbeing and its relationship to mental health

The Mental Health Foundation is exploring the concept of ‘wellbeing’ and its relationship with the concept of ‘mental health’. This talk brings together several definitions and models. It draws out distinctions and core questions which can help us choose between models, assessing their implications in a political and practical context. Catherine Negus is a Senior Research Officer at the Mental Health Foundation, with an emphasis on qualitative research. She started out in international development campaigns, then moved into the local statutory and voluntary sector. She spent five years as a researcher/manager at Healthwatch Southwark, upholding public voice in health and social care. Joining the Mental Health Foundation – an organisation that looks at justice and structural issues – felt like coming full circle. Catherine is also involved as a reviewer for The Lancet Psychiatry via a McPin Foundation scheme, and believes in bringing together ‘academic’ and ‘lay’ perspectives.Particular personal interests within the field include relationships, gender, nature, and definitions – of mental illness, diagnosis, health, wellbeing, and human happiness.