Health Economics and Policy – Niklas Zethraeus' group

Bringing together expertise from economics, medicine, health technology assessment, statistics, and policy, we conduct research that supports evidence-based health care decisions. Our work focuses on evaluating the impacts, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of interventions and reforms to improve health outcomes and the use of societal resources.

Part of the:
Blocks with icons representing health and healthcare stacked on top of each other like a pyramid.

Overall aim

The overall aim of our research is to support and inform policy and decisions on how limited societal resources can be allocated efficiently to improve health. This includes generating evidence on the consequences of health care reforms as well as assessing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of health care interventions from both health care and societal perspectives.  

Organization

Our research group is organized into the following research teams:

Please, visit the webpages of the respective teams for more information about their research activities and assignments. 

News from the research group

The Swedish government appoints Clas Rehnberg, professor in health economics at the Department of LIME, KI, as a special investigator with the task of analysing how the state can contribute to more efficient procurement of specialised healthcare in the private sector.  

Region Stockholm decided to offer all three-year-olds in region Stockholm free vaccination against TBE partly based on this report, see article in see article in Dagens Nyheter (2025-03-17). 

Press-release, KI (2022): “People with long-term neuropathic pain took significantly fewer sick days from work after treatment with spinal cord stimulation”, published in PAIN. 

What we do

Bringing together expertise

We bring together expertise from economics, medicine, health technology assessment, medical statistics, and policy to address important challenges in health care decision-making. Our research group consists of approximately 35 researchers and collaborators, including both employed at KI and affiliated members from the Region Stockholm, and other organizations. 

How it started

Health economics may be defined as a sub-discipline of economics and involves the application of theories and methods of economics on health and health care. Research in health economics at LIME started in 2003. The Centre for Health Economics and Policy and also the research group, was established in 2024. 

Licentiate and doctoral degree theses

Emma Medin, ”Using benchmarking to assess aspects of specialisation in healthcare”, doctoral thesis 2025 

Sofia Sveréus, ”Patient choice and provider incentives : socioeconomic differentials in effects from market reform in Swedish primary care”, doctoral thesis 2024 

Cecilia Dahlgren “Do patients behave as expected on a healthcare market in transition? Consequences of expanding patient choice and introducing telemedicine in primary healthcare”, doctoral thesis, 2022 

Fanny Goude “Hips don’t lie – the use of benchmarking and register data to assess the performance of orthopaedic care”, doctoral thesis, 2021 

Emma Söreskog, “Spinal cord stimulation in chronic pain: A study of health outcomes and costs”, licentiate thesis, KI, 2021 

Olivia Ernstsson, “Making use of patient-reported outcome measures in health care: the case of EQ-5D in the Swedish national quality registries”, doctoral thesis, KI, 2021 

Filip Gedin, “The burden of back pain: evaluation of costs and health outcomes”, doctoral thesis, KI, 2020 

Oskar Ström, “Pharmacoepidemiology and health economics of adherence to pharmaceutical fracture prevention”, doctoral thesis, KI, 2020 

Sayem Ahmed, “Healthcare financing challenges and opportunities to achieving universal health coverage in the low- and middle-income country context”, KI, doctoral thesis 2020

For more theses, search in the KI Open Archive.

Publications

Selected publications

All publications from group members

Reports

Zethraeus N. Health Technology Assessment (HTA) och ekonomisk utvärdering vid utvärdering av hälso- och sjukvårdens metoder. Stockholm: Karolinska Institutets folkhälsoakademi, 2009. Rapport 2009:19.

Johannesson M, Jönsson B, Jönsson L, Kobelt G, Zethraeus N. Why Should Economic Evaluations of Medical Innovations Have a Societal Perspective? OHE Briefing No 51, 2009.

Lindgren, P., Ersättning i sjukvården. Modeller, effekter och rekommendationer. 2014, Stockholm: SNS Förlag.

Staff and contact

Group leader

All members of the group

Collaborations

Research

Our research collaborations include expertise in medicine, biostatistics, and register-based research, and we collaborate with research groups at 

  • Karolinska Institutet 
    • Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, MEB
    • Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, CLINTEC
    • Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, NVS
    • Department of Medicine Solna, MedS
    • Department of Medicine Huddinge, MedH
  • Karolinska University Hospital
  • Uppsala University
  • The Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency (Tandvårds- och läkemedelsförmånsverket, TLV) 

Scientific experts

Some group members also act as scientific experts within Clinicum at KI offering methodological support for researchers at KI and Region Stockholm. 

International

We have developed extensive international collaborations with the 

  • University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) in Germany
  • Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE)

National

We are also part of a collaboration with the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, NVS at KI,  and Precision Medicine Center Karolinska, PMCK at the Karolinska University Hospital and KI, aimed at contributing increased knowledge about health economic aspects and the societal value of precision medicine. 

Health systems

In the field of health systems, collaboration takes place with the University of Oslo, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), the University of Southern Denmark, and Brown University, among others."

Education

Master's Programme in Health Economics, Policy and Management

Education in health economics is a central component of the research group's activities, with the Master's Programme in Health Economics, Policy and Management playing a particularly important role. 

The programme comprises two years of full-time study at the second-cycle (Master's) level and awards 120 credits. It provides students with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills needed to analyse health and healthcare issues from organisational, managerial, and policy perspectives. 

Health economics focuses on the financing of healthcare, methods for the economic evaluation of healthcare technologies, and the measurement and valuation of health outcomes. The policy component covers health planning as well as methods for the development, implementation, and evaluation of healthcare policies. Management focuses on approaches to the organisation and management of health and medical care services. 

For more information about the Master's Programme in Health Economics, Policy and Management, please visit the programme webpage.