Dr Manuela Deidda
- Research Fellow (Health Economics & Health Technology Assessment)
Biography
Manuela is a Research Fellow in Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment, where she leads the Economics of population health (EPH) research programme within the Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment (HEHTA) group.
She has lead as health economist co-applicant high value multidisciplinary grants with a cumulative value of over £4 million, designing and conducting the economic evaluation of complex, public health interventions in a wide range of clinical and public health topics (i.e. physical activity, maternal health, child maltreatment, suicide prevention, cancer screening). She has expertise in a broad range of mixed-methods tools (econometric modelling of primary and secondary data,systematic reviews, decision-analytic models, design of data collection instruments, development of conceptual models). She led the development of a guidance for designing and conducting economic evaluations alongside Natural experiments, and she is the lead health economist in the updated MRC guidance to evaluate population health interventions.
Manuela has a MSc and PhD in Economics and Finance. Prior to joining HEHTA she held positions in the academia (University of Cagliari and University of Bolzano) and in international institutions (European Central Bank and European Commission Joint Research Centre), working on a range of topics ( households’ economics, applied economics and public policy evaluation), and developing an extensive expertise in quantitative research methods including analysis of individual-level dataset using microeconometrics methods and non-parametric techniques.
Research interests
Manuela’s research interests are both methodological and applied and include exploring innovative methodological solutions to the challenges posed by preventive, complex interventions in complex systems.
Current projects
As co-investigator and lead Health economist:
- Effectiveness of Surveillance Technologies to prevent Suicides at High-Risk locations, NIHR, 2023-2025
- A Randomised Placebo-Controlled Trial of Antenatal Corticosteroids for Planned Birth in Twins: STOPPIT-3 NIHR, 2021-2025
- PHaCT Trial: Preventing Homelessness, improving health for prison leavers: a pilot randomised controlled trial of a Critical Time intervention. NHIR, 2022-2024
- A pilot cluster randomised controlled trial of the Go2Play Active Play intervention for children with intellectual disabilities. Baily Thomas Charitable Fund, 2023-2025
As lead Health economist:
- Whole-school approach to addressing Gender-Based violence (GBV) in secondary school (Equally Safe at School): A pragmatic cluster-randomised trial and mixed-methods evaluation. NIHR, 2023-2026
- Burns Rehabilitation: A multidisciplinary program for burns management, treatment and prevention in low income countries. NIHR, 2022-2026
- Optimal implementation of Wolbachia wAlbB programmes for dengue control, Wellcome Trust, 2022-2027
Recent completed projects
As co-investigator and lead Health economist:
- Healthcare and Socio-economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Patients with Diabetes in Tanzania and Kenya MRC GECO, 2021-2023
- Football Fans and Betting (FFAB): a feasibility study and randomised pilot trial of a group-based intervention to reduce gambling involvement among male football fans, NIHR, 2020-2023
As co-investigator and lead Health economist
- SITLESS: Exercise Referral Schemes enhanced by Self-Management Strategies to battle sedentary behaviour. Horizon 2020, 2016-2020
- Evaluation of the Healthy Start Voucher Scheme in UK: a natural experiment using the Growing Up in Scotland record linkage study and the Infant Feeding Survey. NIHR, 2026-2020
- NIHR Global Health Research Group on estimating the prevalence, quality of life, economic and societal impact of arthritis in Tanzania: a mixed methods study at University of Glasgow. NIHR, 2018-2022
- The BeST? Services Trial: effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the New Orleans Intervention Model for Infant Mental Health. NIHR, 2017-2024
- Randomised control trial of surveillance and no surveillance for patients with Barrett's oesophagus - BOSS (Barrett's Oesophagus Surveillance Study). NIHR, 2016-2024
Grants
Grants and Awards listed are those received whilst working with the University of Glasgow.
- A pilot cluster randomised controlled trial of the Go2Play Active Play intervention for children with intellectual disabilities.
Baily Thomas Charitable Fund
2023 - 2025
- Effectiveness of Surveillance Technologies to Prevent Suicides at High-Risk Locations
National Institute for Health Research
2023 - 2026
- PHaCT Trial: Prevention of Homelessness and Critical Time Intervention Trial
National Institute for Health Research
2022 - 2024
- MRC/NIHR guidance on Natural Experimental Evaluations (NEEs) for researchers and End-Users
Medical Research Council
2021 - 2023
- Football and gambling: a feasibility study and pilot for an intervention to reduce gambling involvement among football fans
National Institute for Health Research
2020 - 2021
Teaching
- Course co-lead: Health Technology Assessment in a Global Context, 10-week MSc module and CPD course. Glasgow University
- Development and design of the following Teaching Modules, regularly taught at the University of Glasgow:
- ‘Advanced epidemiology: methods designed to accommodate unobserved confounding’, Master in Public Health
- ‘Introduction to Health Economics’, delivered to the Nursing & Health Care School students, 4th year, to the Microcredential course ‘Introduction to management and leadership in Health services’ and to the MSc Health Services Management students University of Glasgow
- 'Combining/linking different datasets, Data Manipulation and Transformation’. Online module, delivered to MSc in Health Technology Assessment Students
- ‘Evaluation of interventions- Measurement of health economic outcomes in physical activity research an intervention’, MSc in Sports and exercise science and medicine
Professional activities & recognition
Grant committees & research advisory boards
- 2021 - 2024: Health economist member of the Trial steering committee for the project ‘Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a peer-led walking programme to increase physical activity in inactive older adults: Walk with me Study'(NIHR award id NIHR131550), NIHR
- 2022 - 2022: Associated committee member for the HTA General Funding committee, NIHR
- 2020 - 2020: College of Expert Member for the Global Effort on COVID-19 (GECO) Health Research call:, UKRI-MRC
Selected international presentations
- 2023: International health economics association (IHEA) (Cape Town, South Africa)
- 2021: Invited webinar (Ulster University, School of medicine)
- 2018: European Health Economics association (EuHEA) Conference (Maastricht)
- 2019: Health economics study group (HESG) (York)
- 2017: Health economics study group (HESG) (Aberdeen)
- 2017: Health economics study group (HESG) (Birmingham)
Supplementary
- Regularly provide reviews for NIHR funding programmes (Health Services and Delivery Research and Public Health Research) 2022: Reviewer of a project proposal in a funding call from the WWTF - Vienna Science and Technology Fund (Austria) in the field of Public Health. 2023: Reviewer for the Irish Health Research Board (one Postdoctoral fellowship) Peer reviewer for multiple journals in the field of Health Economics, Applied Economics and Public Health (Social Science and Medicine, Value in Health, PLoS ONE, Health Economics, Applied health Economics and Health Policy, BMC Medicine, Cost effectiveness and Resource allocation, BMC Health services research, , BMJ Open, International journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, European Journal of health economics, Journal of Affective Disorders, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ).