PRICELESS SA stands for Priority Cost-Effective Lessons for System Strengthening in South Africa.
What we do
PRICELESS SA undertakes research and provides evidence that demonstrates how to improve health and life expectancy in South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa. Our priority areas are: maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, nutrition in the first 1,000 days, preventing road traffic injuries and deaths, health-promoting polices, and health systems and health systems reform.
PRICELESS SA is the leading Southern African institution for formal, degreed postgraduate teaching in health economics and decision science. We also offer a series of short courses and workshops on vaccine economics targeted for policymakers, public health professionals and academics.
PRICELESS SA engages with policymakers, the public and the media to strengthen insight and expertise for setting priorities for South African health.
PRICELESS SA publishes widely and often in peer-reviewed academic journals, and contributes opinion pieces in the mainstream media.
Our multidisciplinary team includes health economists, clinicians, Lawyers and researchers with backgrounds in sociology, anthropology, epidemiology, health services and law.
How we do it
Our work is geared to:
- Promoting institutional processes for priority-setting
- Developing methods and tools for public engagement around priority-setting
- Developing methods to ensure that social values are incorporated into decisions about priorities
- Demonstrating which health interventions can provide a good return on investment, incorporating related economic considerations
- Developing new economic tools tailored to the South Africa context
PRICELESS SA was established in the Wits School of Public Health in 2009. In recognition of our excellence and leadership, PRICELESS SA was awarded status as an extramural research unit of the South African Medical Research Council in 2019, named the Wits Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science.
