Mr Mark Monahan B.Comm, MSc

Mr Mark Monahan

Institute of Applied Health Research
Lecturer in Health Economics

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 3197
Email
m.monahan.1@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@markovmonahan
View my research portal
Address
Health Economics Unit
Public Health Building
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Mark has been working in the Health Economics Unit since November 2013 and has built up a career in health economics over the years. Mark was previously affiliated with the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Unit on Global Surgery where he provided health economic input to the global surgery programme.

Mark is at the write up stage for a PhD on the economics of safe surgery in Low- and Middle- Income Countries. His supervisors are Professor Tracy Roberts, Professor Sue Jowett and Professor Tom Pinkney.

In 2018, Mark was invited to speak to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Micronutrients and Health in the Palace of Westminster. The subject of the meeting was on ‘Healthcare Cost Savings from Food Supplements.’ Mark presented previous research, published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, on the potential cost savings of iodine supplementation to pregnant women.

Qualifications

  • MSc (Health Economics), National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway), 2013
  • BComm (Commerce) International Experience, National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway), 2012

Biography

After completing an MSc in Health Economics in the NUI Galway, he joined the Health Economics Unit at the University of Birmingham in November 2013 on a six month Research Associate post. Mark has been part of the health economics unit ever since and has also worked as a Research Fellow before becoming a Lecturer in Health Economics in January 2022.

Mark is a module co-lead for the Modelling for Health Economics module in the MSc Health Economics and Health Policy programme and a module co-lead for the Health Economics module in the Master of Public Health programme.

Mark currently coordinates the Research Design Service (RDS) activities in the Health Economics Unit at the University of Birmingham. This team engages in providing advice on the design of economic components of research projects submitted for funding to national competitions.

Mark has previously worked in clinical areas such as Pregnancy Supplementation, Hypertension, Idiopathic Venous Thromboembolism, Heart Failure Screening, and Pressure Garments for Burns.

Teaching

Research

Mark’s main research interests include economic evaluation in High Blood Pressure, Global Surgery, and Task-shifting, respectively. In terms of methodology, Mark is interested in decision models with capacity constraints and agent-based modelling.

Mark is currently writing up of Global Surgery projects including costing studies of postoperative costs of Surgical Site Infection across different continents, a paediatric Tuberculous costing study in India, an economic evaluation of task-shifting in Ghana and the global costs of unmet need in surgical conditions.  

Mark is supervising a research fellow undertaking a model-based economic evaluation of the PRE-EMPT trial.

Mark is a co-investigator on a surgical follow-up study where he is extending a trial-based economic evaluation (ROCSS) to assess the long-term cost-effectiveness of standard stoma site closure against reinforced closure using a biological mesh.

Previous Research

Mark’s previous research mainly involved undertaking economic evaluations using decision analytic modelling. Mark is experienced in building decision trees and Markov models.

Mark’s first publication, assessing the costs and benefits of iodine supplementation tablets for UK pregnant women, garnered national and internal press coverage (e.g. The Times, New Scientist, BBC news). It is in the top 1% of all research output ever tracked by Altmetric (score of 143), an indicator of research impact.

Other activities

Mark helped form the NIHR Health Economics Network for Global Health. The motivation for the Network is to share learning, discuss and explore common challenges with regard to methods required and strategies to address the challenges of conducting applied health economics evaluation in Global Health. Health Economists from thirteen NIHR global health groups and units are represented in the network. Mark was an organiser of the inaugural face to face meeting in Birmingham early 2020 and he coordinated a successful organisation of the second meeting (virtual) with academics in LSTHM in March 2021.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Monahan, M, Roberts, T, Morton, D, Glasbey, J, Pinkney, T, Bhangu, A, Jowett, S, Tabiri, S, Ntirenganya, F, Ademuyiwa, AO, Ghosh, D & la Medina, ARD 2023, 'The costs of surgical site infection after abdominal surgery in middle income countries: Key resource use In Wound Infection (KIWI) study', The Journal of hospital infection.

NIHR Global Surgery collaboration 2022, 'Global economic burden of unmet surgical need for appendicitis', British Journal of Surgery, vol. 109, no. 10, pp. 995-1003. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znac195

Guariglia, A, Monahan, M, Pickering, K & Roberts, T 2021, 'Financial health and obesity', Social Science and Medicine, vol. 276, 113665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113665

NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery, ASOS Investigators & STARSurg Collaborative 2021, 'Preliminary model assessing the cost-effectiveness of preoperative chlorhexidine mouthwash at reducing postoperative pneumonia among abdominal surgery patients in South Africa', PLOS One, vol. 16, no. 8, e0254698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254698

Tahir, W, Monahan, M, Dorling, J, Hewer, O, Bowler, U, Linsell, L, Partlett, C, Berrington, J, Boyle, E, Embleton, ND, Johnson, S, Leaf, A, McCormick, K, McGuire, W, Stenson, B, Juszczak, E & Roberts, T 2020, 'Economic evaluation alongside the speed of increasing milk feeds trial (SIFT)', Archives of Disease in Childhood, vol. 105, no. 6, pp. F1-F6. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2019-318346

NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery 2020, 'Pragmatic multicentre factorial randomized controlled trial testing measures to reduce surgical site infection in low- and middle-income countries: study protocol of the FALCON trial', Colorectal disease : the official journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland. https://doi.org/10.1111/codi.15354

Monahan, M, Jowett, S, Pinkney, T, Brocklehurst, P, Morton, D, Abdali, Z & Roberts, T 2020, 'Surgical site infection and costs in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of the economic burden', PLoSONE, vol. 15, no. 6, e0232960. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232960

Monahan, M, Jowett, S, Nickless, A, Franssen, M, Grant, S, Greenfield, S, Hobbs, FDR, Hodgkinson, J, Mant, J & McManus, RJ 2019, 'Cost-effectiveness of telemonitoring and self-monitoring of blood pressure for antihypertensive titration in primary care (TASMINH4)', Hypertension, vol. 73, no. 6, pp. 1231-1239. https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.118.12415

Tompson, AC, Fleming, S, Lee, M-M, Monahan, M, Jowett, S, McCartney, D, Greenfield, S, Heneghan, CJ, Ward, AM, Hobbs, R & McManus, RJ 2019, 'Mixed-methods feasibility study of blood pressure self-screening for hypertension detection', BMJ open, vol. 9, no. 5, e027986. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-027986

TASMINH4 investigators 2018, 'Efficacy of self-monitored blood pressure, with or without telemonitoring, for titration of antihypertensive medication (TASMINH4): an unmasked randomised controlled trial', The Lancet, vol. 391, no. 10124, pp. 949-959. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30309-X

Gurung, B, Jackson, L, Monahan, M, Butterworth, R & Roberts, T 2018, 'Identifying and assessing the benefits of interventions for postnatal depression: a systematic review of economic evaluations', BMC pregnancy and childbirth, vol. 18, 179. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-018-1738-9

Monahan, M, Jowett, S, Lovibond, K, Gill, P, Godwin, M, Greenfield, S, Hanley, J, Hobbs, FDR, Mant, J, Martin, U, McKinstry, B, Williams, B, Sheppard, J & McManus, R 2018, 'Predicting Out-Of-Office Blood Pressure (Proof-BP) in the clinic for the diagnosis of hypertension in primary care: an economic evaluation', Hypertension, vol. 71, no. 2, pp. 250–261. https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.117.10244

Monahan, M, Ensor, J, Moore, D, Fitzmaurice, D & Jowett, S 2017, 'Economic evaluation of strategies for restarting anticoagulation therapy with warfarin based on Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) risk after an index unprovoked VTE event', Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, vol. 15, no. 8, pp. 1591–1600. https://doi.org/10.1111/jth.13739

Monahan, M, Barton, P, Taylor, C, Hobbs, FDR & Roalfe, A 2017, 'MICE or NICE? An economic evaluation of clinical decision rules in the diagnosis of heart failure in primary care', International Journal of Cardiology, vol. 241, pp. 255-261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2017.02.149

Franssen, M, Farmer, A, Grant, S, Greenfield, S, Hodgkinson, J, Jowett, S, Martin, U, Milner, S, Monahan, M, Ogburn, E, Perera-Salazar, R, Schwartz, C, Yu, L-M & McManus, R 2017, 'Telemonitoring and/or self-monitoring of blood pressure in hypertension (TASMINH4): protocol for a randomised controlled trial', BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, vol. 17, 58. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-017-0494-5

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