Jan Abel Olsen
Professor Emeritus in health economics
Job description
Jan Abel Olsen is now a Professor Emeritus of Health Economics in the Department of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø, Norway. He is an adjunct professor in the Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Australia.
Jan Abel has been visiting professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of York, and Bocconi University, Italy. He has published extensively in the leading health economics journals. His eclectic research interests include: measurement and valuation of health outcomes, EQ-5D, equality and fairness, determinants of health and wellbeing, healthcare financing and incentives. Jan Abel enjoys teaching and has written three books in health economics.
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Publications outside Cristin
Books
Olsen JA: Principles in health economics and policy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017
Olsen JA: Helseøkonomi: Effektivitet og rettferdighet, Cappelen Akademisk Forlag, 2006
Dolan P, Olsen JA: Distributing health care: Economic and ethical issues, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002
Some selected publications:
Chen G, Olsen JA, Lamu AN: The influence of parents’ and partner’s educations on own health behaviours, Social Science and Medicine, 2024
Olsen JA, Chen G, Lamu AN: The relative importance of education and health behaviour for health and wellbeing, BMC Public Health, 2023
Lamu AN, Chen G, Olsen JA: Amplified disparities: The association between spousal education and own health, Social Science and Medicine, 2023
Olsen JA, Lindberg MH, Lamu AN: Health and wellbeing in Norway: Population norms and the social gradient. Social Science and Medicine 2020
Olsen JA, Lamu A, Cairns J: In search of a common currency: A comparison of seven EQ-5D-5L value sets. Health Economics, 2017
Olsen JA: Concepts of equity and fairness in health and health care, in Smith PC, Glied SA (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics, Oxford University Press, 2011
Olsen JA: Priority preferences: 'End of life' does not matter, but total life does, Value in Health 2013
Olsen JA: Hva menes med "sykdommens alvorlighetsgrad"? Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening, 2013
Olsen JA, Donaldson C, Shackley P. Implicit vs explicit ranking: On inferring ordinal preferences for health care programmes based on differences in willingness-to-pay. Journal of Health Economics, 2005; 24 (5): 990-996.
Olsen JA, Donaldson C, Pereira J. The insensitivity of ‘willingness-to-pay’ to the size of the good: new evidence for health care, Journal of Economic Psychology, 2004; 25: 445-460.
Olsen JA, Richardson J, Dolan P, Menzel P. The moral relevance of personal characteristics in setting health care priorities, Social Science and Medicine, 2003; 57: 1163-1172.
Olsen JA. A note on eliciting distributive preferences for health, Journal of Health Economics, 2000; 19: 541-550.
Olsen JA, Richardson J. Production gains from health care: What should be included in cost-effectiveness analyses? Social Science and Medicine, 1999; 49: 17-26.
Olsen JA: Theories of justice and their implications for priority setting in health care, Journal of Health Economics, 1997; 16: 625-639
Research interests
- Priority setting: Efficiency and equity in healthcare
- Measuring and valuing health outcomes; Quality-adjusted-life-years (QALYs)
- Inequalities in health
- Regional variation in healthcare utilization
Current Research
- Multi Instrument Comparison of generic quality of life (QoL) instruments (Grant 221452 from The Research Council of Norway, and grant from the Australian NHMRC)
- Tracing causes of inequalities in health and well-being (Grant 273812 from The Research Council of Norway)
Teaching
HEL 3007 Health Economics and Policy
Lecture notes: Health economics 2020
- Lecture 1: Health & Healthcare
- Lecture 2a: Economics & Efficiency production
- Lecture 2b: Economics & Efficiency demand
- Lecture 2c: Economics & Efficiency HealthCare
- Lecture 3: Market Failures
- Lecture 4: Equality & Fairness
- Lecture 5: Determinants Overview
- Lecture 6-8: Determinants of health
- Lecture 9: Funding sources overview
- Lecture 10: Insurance model
- Lecture 11: Prepayment schemes
- Lecture 12: Patient payment
- Lecture 13: Healthcare delivery Overview
- Lecture 14: PrimaryCare
- Lecture 15: Secondary care
- Lecture 16: Unwarranted variations
- Lecture 17: Econ Eval Intro
- Lecture 18: Health Gains
- Lecture 18b: Health Gains in money terms
- Lecture 19: Costs CEA
- Lecture 20: Equity & Priority Setting
Member of research group
CV
Work address
Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromsø, Norway.
Education
PhD (Dr Philos), thesis: Some methodological issues in economic evaluation in health care, University of Tromsø (1994). MSc in Economic geography (1981), MA in Economics and business administration (1979), Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
Current positions
- Since May 2024, Professor Emeritus, retired after 25 years as Professor of health economics and health services research, Department of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø (UiT), Norway
- Since 2010, Adjunct Professor, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Previous positions
- 1980-81 Research associate, Department of Social Sciences, UiT
- 1982-85 Research associate, Department of Economics, UiT
- 1986-98 Associate professor, Department of Economics, UiT
- 1992-96 Adjunct Professor, Aberdeen University, Scotland
- 2004-06 Adjunct Professor, Bocconi University, Italy
- 2006-11 Adjunct Professor, University of Oslo, Norway
- 2011-24 Part time researcher at Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Research Fields
Measuring and valuing health outcomes; QALYs; EQ-5D; Efficiency vs equality trade-offs in health and healthcare; The relationship between health related quality of life (HRQoL) and subjective well-being (SWB); Tracing causes of inequalities in health and well-being; Health care financing
Books
- Olsen JA: Principles in Health Economics and Policy (2nd edition), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017
- Olsen JA: Helseøkonomi: Effektivitet og rettferdighet, Cappelen Akademisk Forlag, Oslo, 2006
- Dolan P, Olsen JA: Distributing health care: Economic and ethical issues, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002
- Also translated into Polish: Dystrybucja usług medycznych. Zagadnienia ekonomiczne i etyczne, CeDeWu, 2008
Publication profile
95 peer reviewed journal articles, of which more than half appear in level 2 journals (similar to A and A*) in the Norwegian Scientific Index (CRIStin). In total 30 articles published in the three most prestigious health economics journals (JHE, HE, SS&M). In most of this published work I have played a leading role, as signaled by being sole author (15), first author (16), or last author (46). My H-index: 43.
Teaching experience
Graduate courses at universities in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Tanzania, South Africa, UK.