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CAHSPR is a vibrant community of diverse individuals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, with a shared interest in health services and policy research.

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What is HSPR

Health services and policy research (HSPR) is a problem-oriented field into which people enter from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds to work together to find ways that health care can best be organized, financed, and delivered

Health services research is a multidisciplinary field of scientific inquiry into how to measure and improve the safety, quality, accessibility, affordability and organization of health care services. (Adapted from the Coalition for Health Services Research, 2006)

Health policy research is a multidisciplinary field involving instrumental analyses of policy alternatives that affect the health care system or the health of the general public, and scholarly inquiries into the process of health policy making and how it is shaped by ideas, interests, and institutional arrangements. (Adapted from “Strengthening Health Policy Scholarship in Canada,” McMaster University, 2007)

Health economics is the study of how scarce resources are allocated among alternative uses for the care of sickness and the promotion, maintenance and improvement of health, including the study of how healthcare and health-­-related services, their costs and benefits, and health itself are distributed among individuals and groups in society. (Adapted from the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics, 2006)

Health technology assessment is the systematic evaluation of the properties, effects and/or other impacts of health care technology. Its primary purpose is to provide objective information to support health care decisions and policy making at the local, regional, national and international levels.