Hossein Afzali
Professor

Organisation unit

College of Health School of Public Health

About me

I have a background in medicine (MD) and obtained my PhD in health economics from the University of Adelaide. My main area of expertise relates to the economic evaluation of new health technologies with a focus on the application of decision analytic models aiming to improve models of clinical care in the primary care setting and the decision-making process around the public funding of health care interventions. In terms of applied economic evaluations, my major research activity is the design, conduct and analysis of economic evaluations alongside observational studies and clinical trials. This also includes the application of decision analytic models to extrapolate the findings beyond the observed data in order to estimate lifetime costs and outcome of new health technologies. The main focus of my methodological research is on the improvements in the decision-making process with a view to better inform public funding decisions. Examples include the development of diseases-specific reference models, model structuring (including structural uncertainty) and the estimate of the cost-effectiveness threshold in Australia. Since 2020, as a chief investigator, I have received over $25 million in research funding from competitive grants. I am coordinator of three topics/courses within undergraduate and postgraduate public health teaching programs at Flinders University. Previously (2019-2023) I was coordinator of all postgraduate public health teaching programs (including MPH) at Flinders University. For 9 years I was a member of the Evaluation Sub-Committee (ESC) of the Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC) (2015-2023) whose role is to advise the Australian government on evidence relating to the safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of new medical technologies and procedures. I was also an evaluator of submissions to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) to determine funding of medicines (2007-2009). I have also been in
I have a background in medicine (MD) and obtained my PhD in health economics from the University of Adelaide. My main area of expertise relates to the economic evaluation of new health technologies with a focus on the application of decision analytic models aiming to improve models of clinical care in the primary care setting and the decision-making process around the public funding of health care interventions. In terms of applied economic evaluations, my major research activity is the design, conduct and analysis of economic evaluations alongside observational studies and clinical trials. This also includes the application of decision analytic models to extrapolate the findings beyond the observed data in order to estimate lifetime costs and outcome of new health technologies. The main focus of my methodological research is on the improvements in the decision-making process with a view to better inform public funding decisions. Examples include the development of diseases-specific reference models, model structuring (including structural uncertainty) and the estimate of the cost-effectiveness threshold in Australia. Since 2020, as a chief investigator, I have received over $25 million in research funding from competitive grants. I am coordinator of three topics/courses within undergraduate and postgraduate public health teaching programs at Flinders University. Previously (2019-2023) I was coordinator of all postgraduate public health teaching programs (including MPH) at...
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2021: College of Medicine and Public Health (CMPH) Teaching Innovation & Scholarship Award
2018: Best Presentation Award: Good practices for structuring cost-effectiveness models in decision making. 20th International Conference in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy. Singapore, March 2018
2016: Alan Williams Fellowship Award: Disease-specific (reference) models. Centre for Health Economics (CHE), the University of York (UK)

Area of interest: Economic evaluation in health care: 
Before taking a position at Flinders University in 2019, I was a senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide (2009-2018) where I was coordinator for a number of undergraduate and postgraduate health economics courses including: ‘Health Economics’ (a core course for Master of Health Economics and Policy mainly focusing on economic evaluation of new pharmaceuticals), ‘Evaluation in Public Health’ (a core course for MPH), ‘Hacking Health’ (a core course for Advanced Bachelor of Health Sciences), and ‘MPPD3-Health Economics (a core course for 3rd year medical students). I was also coordinator of the following teaching programs at Flinders University (2019-2023)Master of Public Health; Graduate Certificate in Public Health; Graduate Certificate in Health Promotion
Last updated on 28/01/2026 by Hossein Afzali