The Social and Economic Value of Health

An innovative research programme to investigate the impact of health on society and the economy

This programme is closed for applications.

Researcher-led open call for outline proposals supporting original research to position people’s health as an asset for the economy and society.
£1.5m is available for research that will generate new knowledge on the ways in which the physical and mental health of a population shapes their social and economic outcomes.
Each project team will receive up to £300,000 for projects with a maximum duration of two years.
Researchers are initially invited to submit outline proposal applications for review.

The Health Foundation’s £1.5m Social and Economic Value of Health in a Place Research Programme 2019 invites researchers to submit ideas for research that will generate new knowledge on the ways in which the physical and mental health of a population shapes their social and economic outcomes.

Economic and social factors have a complex, dynamic and multidirectional relationship with health. While much is known about the impact of social and economic factors on health outcomes, ie the wider determinants of health, relatively little is understood about the impact of health on the social and economic outcomes of individuals and populations.

Social and Economic Value of Health in a Place research programme seeks to understand the extent to which the health of a population (physical and/or mental) shapes the social and economic outcomes of that population.

We want to support five projects with funding between £200,000 and £300,000 for a maximum duration of two years.

These projects will develop the concepts and metrics needed to help understand how the health status of a population may influence the social and economic outcomes of that population.

The priority areas for this call are:

understanding the relationship between a given population’s health and the health of individuals within that population
establishing the definitions and metrics needed to examine the relationship between the health of a population in a place and the social and economic outcomes of that place.

This research call builds upon our existing research in this area. Our Social and Economic Value of Health programme is already supporting six research projects to explore this relationship from the perspective of individuals.

The application process

This programme closed for applications on Thursday 25 July 2019.

Applicants will be informed as to whether they have been invited to submit a full proposal in mid-late August. The deadline for full proposals is 12.00 Friday 27 September 2019.

Shortlisted candidates from stage 2 will be interviewed in November 2019. Interviewed applicants will be advised of the outcome in November 2019.

Please note: If you have any queries about the programme or application process which have not been answered in our Frequently asked questions, please email: valueofhealthinaplace@health.org.uk

Social and Economic Value of Health Research Programme 2017

We are currently funding six projects under the first round of this programme.

Aims of the programme

This Health Foundation programme aims to generate new knowledge and expand our understanding of the impact that a person’s physical and/or mental health has on their own economic and social outcomes over the medium to long term.

The programme will help develop understanding of the economic and social case for investing in strategies that maintain, protect and create health more broadly than through investment in health care, by reframing health as an asset that can potentially deliver wider economic and social returns on investment.

Projects

We are funding six projects with between £150,000 and £350,000. They will each run for up to three years.

The projects span a range of age groups and different social and economic outcomes. They will look at areas such as whether health status changes across the life course; whether similar experiences of health result in different outcomes across generations; and how variations in people’s mental and physical health shape their social and economic outcomes.

Key areas of interest for the projects include:

the impact of a person’s health on the economic and social aspects of their life, both at specific points in time and over the course of their lives
understanding how individuals’ different experiences of health leads to varying economic and social outcomes in the future
comparing across generations to find out whether similar experiences of health result in different outcomes, reflecting a changing context
methods that test explicitly whether health affects economic and social outcomes, rather than economic and social factors affecting health.