Improving medical trials with health economics

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 economics.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

Before any treatment can be used on patients, it must be tested in medical trials. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the gold standard for medical trials. But can RCTs be improved?

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Howard Thom at the University of Bristol, UK. He is a health economist, investigating the advantages of adaptive RCTs over conventional RCTs. His work could help to reduce unnecessary research, save time and money, and help the National Health Service (NHS) make better decisions about patient care.

• This resource also contains an interview with Howard about his career path. If you or your students have a question for him, you can submit it online – go to the article using the Futurum link below and scroll to the bottom of the page. Howard will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Howard’s work, and tasks them to think about the ways in which health economics can be a force for good.

• The PowerPoint summarises the key points in the article and has additional Talking Points.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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