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The theme’s research on General Practice as a business Research on the role of risk preference applied to
organisation is continuing with Verity Watson, the healthcare workforce continued through an
together with Dr Rainer Schulz (Business School, ongoing PhD entitled ‘The role of the physician’s risk
University of Aberdeen), Dr Heather Dickey (Queen’s and time preferences and personality in clinical decision
Management School, Queen’s University Belfast), making’ which is now in the second year with PhD
Joan MacLeod (Aberdeen City Health and Social Care student Xuemin Zhu. 2019 saw the experiment stage
Partnership) and Professor Peter Murchie (Academic completed for the project ‘Developing economic
Primary Care, University of Aberdeen), exploring how experiments to understand patient and doctor behaviour’
business risk affects general practitioners. Research in relation to the doctor’s use of decision aids, with
is also continuing in analysing the factors that Verity Watson and Marjon van der Pol, Dr Dean
influence where GPs locate their practice and is testing Regier (University of British Columbia) and former
if practices locate in a way that is consistent with HERU PhD student Alastair Irvine, now with Scottish
economic location theory. Government.
Nurses form the largest group within the NHS
workforce and understanding how they react to
monetary incentives in terms of attracting them to
jobs is a key challenge for policy makers. A new project
in 2019 ‘Understanding nurses’ workplace valuations’
considers how (nursing) workforce characteristics act as
a moderating or magnifying influence on behaviour in
the presence of economic incentives.
And finally, the theme was delighted to be involved in
the creation of the Health Workforce Special Interest
Group within the international Health Economics
Association (iHEA). This followed on from the successful
3rd Economics of the Health Workforce Conference,
A new project was completed within 2019 entitled
held in conjunction with the iHEA Congress in Basel,
‘Insecure employment and mental health: one pathway
co-organised by Diane Skåtun. The conference
in the productivity puzzle’ led by Daniel Kopasker with
was the third in a series co-organised by HERU and
Professor Catia Montagna (Department of Economics,
brought together researchers interested in micro-
University of Aberdeen) and funded by the Economic
economic studies of the health workforce. Research
and Social Research Council through the Productivity
presented utilised a variety of methods to extend our
Insights Network. A key pathway by which insecure
understanding of the behaviour of the healthcare
employment can impact on productivity is through
workforce and how workforce organisation and
its effect on employee mental health. This research
associated behaviours impacts on patient care. We
quantified the impact of insecure employment on
look forward to maintaining a network of researchers
productivity. It advanced the understanding of
interested in this field within the iHEA Health Workforce
insecure employment and productivity by identifying
Special Interest Group. For further details please see:
characteristics of the employers which could potentially
www.healtheconomics.org/page/HWSIG#HWSIGConv
benefit from reducing insecure employment. The
project complements our ongoing research which Further detail on the theme’s research can be found at:
values the benefits to employees, in terms of health- www.abdn.ac.uk/heru/research/worgc/
related quality of life, of limiting exposure to insecure
employment.

HERU ANNUAL REPORT 2019 11