Health Economics and Nutrition Will Be the Two Main Focuses of the 2015 iHEA Congress

EXPERTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD WILL ARRIVE AT UNIVERSITA' BOCCONI, BETWEEN 12 AND 15 JULY TO ATTEND THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE, INCLUDING MAJOR ACADEMIC PERSONALITIES ESTHER DUFLO AND ERNST FEHR

De Gustibus Disputandum Non Est! Health Economics and Nutrition: so reads the title of the eleventh edition of the International Health Economics Association World Congress, which will take place from 12 to 15 July in the classrooms of Università Bocconi in via Roentgen. More than 1600 participants are expected: faculty of countries all over the world, including the US, Austria, Japan, the UK, South Africa, Australia, Switzerland, as well as experts of institutions such as the World Health Organization will gather to discuss leading-edge topics in the fields of health economics and nutrition. With almost 1.500 research papers to be presented, the 2015 edition of the iHEA World Congress is one of the major conferences hosted by Università Bocconi, as explain the organisers Giovanni Fattore, Aleksandra Torbica, Carlo Federici and Rosanna Tarricone, faculty members of the Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management and research fellows of the Health Economics & Health Technology Assessment area of Cergas (directed by Tarricone).
 
“The International Health Economics Association Congress is the most important conference in the world in the field of health economics. It is held every two years in a different location, and having managed to host the 2015 edition here at Bocconi is a great achievement for us”, says Aleksandra Torbica. “The objective was clearly to create a thematic connection with Expo 2015. Hence the title, which refers both to the topic of nutrition and to the issue of individual preferences, which are a core aspect of health economics research.” Thus, during this year’s edition, along with state-of-the art subjects in the field of health economics – such as prevention, sustainable health care, tele-medicine, health technology assessment – studies on food security, taxing of unhealthy food, nutritional supplements and the economic impact of disease-related malnutrition will also be presented. A widely discussed topic will be that of obesity, and of child obesity as well – specifically, John Cawley (Cornell University), Richard A. Dunn (University of Connecticut) and Nathan Tefft (Bates College)’s plenary session will deal with the economics of obesity.
 
Esther Duflo (MIT) and Ernst Fehr (University of Zurich) will be speaking during the two other plenary sessions. “Esther Duflo and Ernst Fehr are prominent academic personalities. Duflo is the young founder and director of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab and one of the leading experts of development economics. Fehr is probably the major authority of lab economic experiments, specifically those regarding the processes underlying individual preferences and economic decision making. In other words, his research shows how De Gustibus Disputandum Est”, explains Fattore, who will be the Congress Chair.
 
The program of the conference can be found at this link.

by Elisa Bazzani