Recipient organisationFederal University of Bahia (UFBA)
Funding£1.4M
PeriodMar 2024 — Feb 2027
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
In five Latin American countries home to over 400 million people, researchers are building an open-access computer platform—called HealthProtect—that will let policymakers simulate how cash transfers, tax changes, and other income-based policies could reduce death and disease. The problem is stark: economic downturns widen health inequalities, but most policies that improve health—like building schools or hospitals—take years to show effects. Income-based interventions, by contrast, can improve health almost immediately and permanently alter a person’s life trajectory. Yet governments rarely have tools to compare which economic policy would save the most lives in their specific country. If successful, HealthProtect will change that. The platform will combine real-world data on income, poverty, and mortality with microsimulation models that forecast how shifting income distributions affects death rates from heart disease, diabetes, infections, and other causes. Policymakers in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico will be able to test strategies before committing public money—choosing, for example, between expanding a conditional cash transfer programme or adjusting tax brackets. The project is applied, not fundamental science. Its direct output is a decision-support tool for governments, accompanied by training and advocacy to embed it into routine policy-making.
View original technical description
The main determinants of health inequalities are arguably socioeconomic inequalities, with income distribution and poverty among the most impactful social determinants of health. While interventions to improve education and infrastructure-related determinants require long implementation periods, and show their health effects mainly in the long-term, income-related and poverty-reduction interventions could have rapid and meaningful impacts since their initial implementation, and permanent effects on beneficiaries' life course. The main aim of our project is to evaluate the impact of the current increase in socioeconomic inequalities on morbidity, mortality, and health inequalities in five Latin American countries, namely Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico (BACEM - representing more than 400 million individuals and more than half of the population of the continent), and to develop integrated simulation models and an open-access platform, named HealthProtect, able to design and evaluate the most impactful and cost-effective economic-based policies in each country for the improvement of health and reduction its health inequalities. The proposed milestones over project will be: Milestone 1 (1-12 month): Evaluation of the effects of income and wealth changes - and of the corresponding increases in poverty rates - on morbidity and mortality, overall and for groups of causes, with a focus on the pandemic and post-pandemic period, in each one of BACEM countries. Milestone 2 (9-18 month): Forecasting the changes of income distributions, poverty rates and inequalities measures in each one of the BACEM countries according to a wide range of global and local economic scenarios. Subsequently, evaluation of the impact of these scenarios on morbidity and mortality. Milestone 3 (19-36 month): Application of HealthProtect to design - together with policy makers in the economic and health sector - the most impactful and cost-effective strategies for the mitigation of the health effects of the economic crisis on morbidity, mortality and health inequalities in each BACEM. Milestone 4 (1-12 month - in parallel with Milestone 1): Development of country-specific microsimulation models able to evaluate the impact of income-based policies, including poverty and inequality-reduction interventions, on morbidity and mortality rates, overall and for groups of causes. Milestone 5 (13-18 - in parallel with Milestone 2): Development of the HealthProtect platform, with a user-friendly dashboard and open-access to stakeholders. Milestone 6 (19-36 month - in parallel with Milestone 3): Country-specific and international dissemination activities, trainings, and advocacy actions for the use of HealthProtect in policy making practices, using also the HealthProtect application of Milestone 6.
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