Joseph Kwon

I am a health economist at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, having started my postdoctoral research career at the department in March 2022.

My research mainly focuses on dementia. From September 2026, I am embarking on the Alzheimer's Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, focusing on how novel blood, digital cognition and genetic tests could make dementia diagnosis quicker and more accurate. A key part of the project will be analysing data from the SANDBOX study and making the health economic case for the national rollout of biomarker-based triage system for dementia diagnosis. From January 2024 to March 2026, I completed the NIHR ARC Dementia Research Fellowship, during which I focused on dementia workforce issues and blood biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease. I'm also continuing research on falls prevention for people living with cognitive impairment and health economic impacts of heatwaves on people diagnosed with dementia. I am a mixed-methods health economics researcher, using a variety of research methods (quantitative and qualitative) to conceptualise and parameterise the health economic model. Key datasets for model development include CPRD, ELSA, CFAS-II, ADNI, A4/LEARN, EPAD and GERAS series.

I have several non-dementia projects and interests. I am seconded to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Science Policy & Research team as part of the NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (‘Mental Health Mission’). I am the co-principal investigator for ‘Development of a PRISMA extension for systematic reviews of health economic evaluations’ (PRISMA-EconEval), funded by NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB). We aim to produce an extension of the widely used PRISMA guideline to systematic review that is tailored specifically to systematic reviews of health economic evaluations. Further projects: (1) Health Effects from Infection Sequelae: Tailoring Services and Advancing Guidance (HERITAGE); (2) Optimising the Virtual Hospice: A mixed-methods study of remote palliative care support covering quality improvement, patient experience and health economics (OVH); and (3) IMPROVE PRETERM, a European Union project on health economic aspects of preterm birth.  

My PhD was in Public Health, Economics and Decision Sciences at University of Sheffield, sponsored by Wellcome Trust PhD studentship. The thesis explored the methodological challenges around economic modelling of geriatric public health interventions, focusing on community-based falls prevention as a case study. Key challenges included incorporating capacity constraints, estimating the value of community asset involvement, and evaluating joint efficiency-equity impacts. I hold a Master’s in Theology from Oxford where my dissertation made a case for ‘rule of rescue’ as a normative principle in healthcare allocation decision-making, using the philosophical and theological framework of Thomas Aquinas. From October 2026, I am a part-time DPhil student at Keble College, University of Oxford. The provisional thesis title is: "Solidarity as a theological principle for healthcare allocation: Natural law, Christological and covenantal ethics in an age of efficiency-based reasoning". I hope to explore the conceptual foundations of solidarity, then apply the principle to three case studies: (1) Dementia care; (2) Health inequality reduction; and (3) Infectious disease control. Generally, I'm interested in ethical challenges in healthcare allocation that arise when priority on efficiency collides with other priorities like social justice.

I am happy to discuss potential DPhil proposals in health economics of dementia.