While studying Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM) for my MPH entrance preparation, I expected to spend most of my time revising epidemiology, biostatistics, screening, and national health programmes.
Then I reached a chapter I hadn’t thought much about before:
Health Economics.
Initially, I assumed it would simply be about budgets and finances.
Instead, it completely changed how I look at healthcare.
It made me realize that medicine isn’t just about diagnosing diseases or prescribing treatments. Every healthcare decision also involves a question of resources.
If a hospital has one ICU bed left, who should receive it?
If a government has a limited budget, should it build another hospital or invest in vaccination, clean water, and primary healthcare?
If two treatments are equally effective but one costs five times more, how should we decide?
These aren’t just economic questions.
They’re clinical, ethical, and public health questions.
Health economics reminds us that resources are finite, but healthcare needs are infinite.
For healthcare professionals, understanding this is just as important as understanding disease itself. It helps us appreciate why prevention matters, why policies differ, why universal health coverage is challenging, and why every health intervention has both a clinical impact and an economic impact.
Perhaps that’s why health economics isn’t just a subject in a textbook.
It’s a way of understanding how healthcare systems make decisions, and why those decisions matter to every patient.
Because healthcare isn’t only about saving lives.
It’s also about making the best possible use of the resources available to save more lives.
If you could choose one area to invest more in, prevention, hospitals, research, or primary healthcare which would you prioritize, and why?
MBH/PS