Events

Webinar: Meaningful and pragmatic health economics in PHIRST evaluations

📅 Thursday 5 November

🕛 2 to 3:30pm

📍 MS Teams

Economic Evaluation (EE) is increasingly something that is requested during PHIRST evaluations. This PHIRST webinar is designed to be an introductory session for those who would like to understand how to apply key principles to local government evaluations.

The session will be chaired by Divya Sivaramakrishnan Chancellor’s Fellow with the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy, University of Edinburgh.

Neil Craig, Professor of Public Health Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University will provide a brief overview of the context, challenges, and opportunities for economic evaluation in public health local authority settings.

We will present 3 evaluations from our portfolio:

• Be Active Birmingham - universal free access to leisure facilities

• Horden Together Partnership - a place based, person centred intervention to improve resident health and well being

• The introduction of zero emission buses in Oxford - to improve air and noise quality and reduce traffic and congestion

Presenters will use these evaluations as examples to consider:

• What types of EE are feasible within the scope of a PHIRST evaluation?

• The pros and cons of some of the most common forms of EE?

• What questions should be asked before beginning an EE?

• What kind of information do you need to conduct an EE?

• How do you communicate your EE approach to decision-makers?

• What tools and resources are available to support non-experts?

• When do you need to call in a Health Economist?

Following the presentations our speakers will discuss the topics raised and take questions from the audience.

If you would like to submit a question for our panel in advance please email Ann.Fitchett@newcastle.ac.uk. 

LARIA Conference and Awards

From data to place: Building community insight for local decision-making

📅 Tuesday 9 March 2027

📍 Local Government Association, London

From data to place: Building community insight for local decision-making will bring together researchers, analysts, and those interested in information for local decision-making to explore how evidence can help organisations understand places at a more meaningful level and make better decisions.

The conference will focus on community-level, local area and neighbourhood insight. It will consider how data, research and lived experience can be brought together to reveal differences within and between places, identify need and opportunity, shape priorities, target resources and support practical action.

Partnership working will be central to the programme. We welcome examples of councils, health organisations, universities, voluntary and community organisations, businesses and residents working together to develop shared evidence, align priorities and improve outcomes. Sessions may explore the practical challenges of sharing information across organisational boundaries, building trust, agreeing common measures and ensuring that local communities influence how evidence is interpreted and used.

The conference will also examine data and digital innovation and the growing role of artificial intelligence. We are interested in responsible and transparent uses of data and AI that help teams analyse complex information, connect quantitative and qualitative evidence, identify emerging patterns, communicate insight and make local intelligence more accessible. Contributions should reflect on data quality, ethics, bias, governance and accountability and the continuing importance of professional judgement and community knowledge.

We want to hear about work that others can learn from. This may be a completed project, an approach currently being tested, or an honest account of work in progress. Proposals could cover:

• Neighbourhood profiles, community intelligence platforms and place-based data hubs.

• Combining administrative data, survey findings, qualitative research and lived experience.

• Partnership approaches to sharing evidence and making decisions across organisations.

• Using local insight to address inequalities and improve services or outcomes.

• Community engagement, co-production and participatory research.

• Responsible uses of artificial intelligence in local research and intelligence.

• Data governance, ethics, transparency, bias and public trust.

• New methods, tools and visualisations that make community insight easier to understand and use.

We are particularly interested in what worked well, what did not work, how the research or data was communicated in a way that decision-makers could use it, what changed as a result and what others should consider when adopting a similar approach.

Click here for further details and to submit your form by Monday 16 November 2026.