Dr Katherine Stevens

A former member of HEDS for 17 years, I am now an Honorary Reader in Health Economics.  I spent 4 years at the University of York, studying firstly for a BSc in Economics, followed by a Masters in Health Economics. I joined the former Sheffield Health Economics Group in October 2000 which became part of the Health Economics and Decision Science (HEDS) Section. In August 2005 I was awarded an MRC Special Training Fellowship in Health Services and Health of the Public Research. The award was for three years and I developed a preference based paediatric generic health related quality of life measure for use in economic evaluation, the Child Health Utility 9D (CHU9D). Further details can be found here. In 2009 I was awarded an ESRC/MRC/NIHR Early Career Post Doctoral Fellowship in the Economics of Health to further develop and apply the CHU9D. Previous work in the area of the measurement and valuation of health includes a UK valuation study of the Health Utilities Index (HUI) II, and developing a preference based measure of quality of life for children with atopic dermatitis.

My research in developing and applying the CHU9D has an international reputation and in the last 5 years I have given 13 international invited lectures, seminars and conference presentations, including at PHARMAC and The Ministry of Health in New Zealand. The CHU9D is in use in over 200 studies worldwide, has been translated into 7 other languages and I have authored many publications in this area. The use of the measure is growing rapidly.

My most recent work has been to collaborate with Professor Julie Ratcliffe (Flinders University, Australia) and colleagues to undertake a valuation survey for the CHU9D using the preferences of adolescents and best worst scaling methods and this is now available for those who would prefer to use adolescent preference weights. I have also recently undertaken a feasibility study to explore the potential for the use of ordinal methods in younger children