Crónica de la mesa EvaluAES en las XLII Jornadas AES

On July 6, during the XLII AES Conference in Girona, the second annual activity of the Interest Group on Evaluation of Health Policies and Health Services (EvaluAES) took place: the Organized Session of EvaluAES. For the first time, the EvaluAES table was prepared by selecting three excellent communications from a group of candidates who showed their interest in being part of the table, who were accompanied by three commentators.

The first to present was Alberto Dalmauof the Health System Observatory Area (AQUAS), with the article “Use of health services when suffering from sudden loneliness”. Albert presented us with an estimate of the impact of the loss of a partner or cohabitant (supervening loneliness) on the use of health services. The study, based on administrative data from CatSalut, compares hospitalizations and visits to primary care (among others), depending on the types of coexistence unit for a population over 65 years of age. The results show that individuals who suffer from sudden loneliness use health services more during the year after the loss of their partner compared to that observed the previous year, and in comparison with the other household types. Where the greatest relative differences are observed are in the percentage of men and women seen in outpatient mental health centers, in the number of visits in Primary Care and in the percentage of women seen by social workers in Primary Care. The most affected age group is 65 to 79 years old. Next, Marc Saez (university of girona, UdG), as a commentator, he focused primarily on the data, since he knows it firsthand, as well as the analysis. He suggested some changes and questioned, along with the rest of the attendees, if the individual really needs to use more resources or if the health system has an action protocol to closely monitor the person who has been left alone. translate into an increase in visits. The debate with the audience was very interesting and will surely help the authors to improve the article.

A slide from the presentation carried out by Albert Dalmau (AQUAS) at the XLII AES Conference

The second presentation was a charge of Elisa Sicurifrom Barcelona Global Health Institute (ISGlobal), with the title, “New technologies for housing improvement in rural Gambia: evidence on learning and adoption “an RCT on malaria”. This article discusses the demand for technologically improved housing in The Gambia for protection against malaria. It is based on an exploratory study (RCT) to investigate whether people exposed to the construction of new homes, with simple and relatively major technological improvements, learn and modify the demand towards similar constructions. The results of the study show some modest effects on learning and very small effects on the adoption of the new technology over a one-year period. The authors’ main conclusion is that more research is needed in this area, expanding the study period and sample size. The commenter of this article, Miquel Serra Burriel (University of Zurich), devoted much of his discussion to this specific topic, especially referring to the study design and its sample size. This was followed by a very enriching debate with the audience.

A slide from the presentation carried out by Elisa Sicuri (ISGlobal) at the XLII AES Conference

The last presentation was by Andres Streetof the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), with the title, “Has the Acute Frailty Network improved outcomes for older people living with frailty?«. This work is an evaluation of the Acute Frailty Network (AFN) in England, which consists of a network of hospital professionals with a voluntary membership. The AFN aims to share learning and “tool kits” to improve support for older people with frailty so that they return home from hospital sooner and healthier. The analysis shows that 66 hospitals joined the AFN sequentially: the first began in January 2015 and the sixth, and last, in May 2018. The results show that membership in the AFN did not significantly affect any of the four outcomes. analyzed (hospital stay, in-hospital mortality, institutionalization and hospital readmission). The main conclusion was that, to achieve its objectives, the AFN would need to develop more personalized and better resourced intervention strategies. After the presentation, Luz María Peña (Castilla-La Mancha university, UCLM) commented on the article, emphasizing the strengths of the analysis, but also making suggestions on how to improve its contribution to the literature and how to word the discussion of non-significant results. Next, she gave way to a debate with the attendees and went on to rest.

Andrew Street (LSE) presenting his work at the XLII AES Conference

Once again, the EvaluAES table allowed us to present three evaluations of public policies in the field of health and show that the results of these studies can be relevant to design and implement policies in these areas. We hope that they will soon move from the Conference to the Printing Press.

At EvaluAES we will continue working to convey the importance of evaluation!