WHA Medal of Distinction and Member Champions

Associate Professor Emily Callander is a health economist at Monash University, where she is Head of the Women’s Health Economics Unit at the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation.  She is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship and leads many NHMRC, MRFF and industry funded research projects.  Emily specialises in maternal and women’s health, with particular interests in value based healthcare, equity and efficiency measurement. She collaborates regularly with state health departments and individual maternity services to help embed health economic evidence in decision making in maternity care.  

Emily’s research has focused on quantifying efficiency and equity in maternal and women’s health care.  This has included leading the cost-effectiveness evaluations of numerous national or international clinical trials in maternal health, which seeks to identify the cost-effectiveness of interventions if they were implemented as a part of routine care.  In addition to clinical trials, she has led the economic evaluation of a number of national health programs (for example, the Safer Baby Bundle, and remote BreastScreen), and the production of real-world evidence with the use of linked administrative datasets, monitoring the costs and outcomes produced in the real-world setting.   

Emily partners with service providers and policy makers in maternity care to translate this evidence into data that can be used at the local decision-making level where implementation and thus impact is generated.  For example, she has worked with Queensland Health to produce their Normal Birth Strategy to reduce rates of caesarean section, and their Costing Companion for Maternity Services to increase availability of midwifery continuity staffing. She also works with the NSW Bureau of Health Information to improve data collection of patient experience; and is working with Monash Partners in Victoria to implement an embedded health economist program for maternal health.   

Emily’s research is unique internationally in its focus on embedding a health economics research program related to maternal and women’s health into health services. There is an extensive body of clinical trial-based research, and modelled economic evaluations related to maternal health care; however, there is often considerable delay in the translation and implementation of this work.   Part of this delay can be attributed to a lack of real-world evidence, which decision-makers can use to identify the health or efficiency gains that could be realised in their local context. The decision to implement a new intervention or service is often more complex than what is captured in a clinical trial environment, with consideration of optimal implementation needed.     

By partnering directly with health services and policy makers Emily creates real-world, usable evidence, tailored to local settings.  She estimates the cost, health and equity impacts for a specific hospital or health service if changes to local-level service delivery were made. It is only through close partnership with services – which involves identifying unique aspects of each service, the population they service, and relevant decision-making factors – can such tailored and usable information be generated to help facilitate optimal translation and generate impact for the benefit of women.       

Emily’s work on maternal outcomes and out of pocket fees have also been utilised by maternity consumers to advocate for better access to models of care and services demanded by women.   Her analysis has been used in nationally-disseminated consumer-focused publications such as Money Magazine and Mumma Mia, national media outlets – ABC Online, The Guardian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Courier Mail, and ABC National Radio. The nationally televised SBS Insight program developed an episode based upon Emily’s work on out of pocket fees for maternity care, and Emily featured as a guest speaker.  In 2018 there was an unprecedented decline in private hospital births, which prominent health economist Professor Stephen Duckett attributed to the sustained media coverage of Emily’s work on out of pocket fees.  

Emily’s is making a measurable difference to improving women’s health and wellbeing across Australia and beyond.