Economic thinking and the methods used in economics can be utilised in various situations. To quote a certain Professor of Economics, “The creative imagination of economists can be expected to find solutions to all measurement problems”. For example, “What is the value of life?” is a question for which an educated economist will offer a solution while waiting for their coffee to brew.

There are many research paradigms and areas of application in economics. There is environmental economics, urban economics, business economics, and labour economics, to mention a few. Not surprisingly, there is also health economics and pharmaceutical economics.

In health economics, the organisation and production of health services and incentives, as well as other issues that are essential for social reform, are studied. In pharmaceutical economics, areas of interest include the cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical treatments, health-related quality of life, and the operation of the pharmaceutical market.

There is a need for education in health economics. The number of professorships and assistant professorships in the field in Finland has been constantly increasing, and course-based teaching is already offered at many universities. Studying health economics as a major has been available at the University of Eastern Finland since 1997. Teaching in this field has been offered there since 1979.

For example, even nowadays the basic training of doctors hardly includes health economics. However, to my knowledge, doctors have been offered course-based training in health and pharmaceutical economics in various forms and scopes for about 20 years. The training has been provided by pharmaceutical companies and later by eMBA programs, among others. Today, there is more and more talk about effectiveness, knowledge management, and value-based training, but elements of health economics are still often included.

My latest teaching experience is from Tuesday last week. I gave a lecture on the basics of health economics to researchers, doctoral students, and staff from the Northern Ostrobothnia Hospital District, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Oulu, the Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, and the City of Oulu. I was pleased to note that expectations about the usefulness of health economics were quite high before the lecture. Hopefully this remained the case after the lecture. I asked the participants three preliminary questions, which were answered as follows.

Impressive! Confidence and belief in health and pharmaceutical economics and its usefulness are solid. Perhaps a small but sufficiently effective dose of pharmaceutical economics mixed into drinking water would satisfy demand at once. Those who have enjoyed the water of Turku throughout their childhood know that the taste could change only for the better.

The author spent his childhood years living nearby Puutori in Turku.

Juha Laine, Professor of Practice