January 2026

In January 2026, Vital Strategies partnered with the Vanderbilt Center for Health Economic Modeling and the CDC Foundation to host the 3^rd Decision Modeling for Health Economic Evaluation workshop in Cebu, Philippines. The five-day workshop brought together 37 health economists from 19 countries, the largest cohort in the program's history. Twenty-five of the participants were women, a significant achievement as the economics field remains male-dominated. These health economists will expand the pool of local Data to Policy facilitators equipped to teach and mentor teams during the economics unit of D2P. They will also help to fill a critical gap in government health agencies, where there are often few if any health economists trained in economic evaluation of policy. Assessing the relative cost-effectiveness of public health policies enables the investment of scarce resources in interventions that can save the most lives.  A highlight of the workshop was the collaboration of the Philippines Department of Health (DOH). Two health economists previously trained in a Data for Health Economics Fellowship at Vanderbilt University joined to help facilitate the workshop. Their involvement reflects the institutionalization of the Philippines' Data to Policy program, which has been running for 10 years and is now funded by the DOH.

Participants particularly appreciated the DOH facilitators’ presentations of their fellowship projects and policy advancement successes. Andrea Ora-Corachea presented several policy impacts of her modeling on the cost-effectiveness of interventions targeting alcohol use. These include a National Policy on Violence and Injury Prevention issued by the DOH in December 2025, which includes social and behavioral change communication and integration of alcohol counseling into the health benefit package, revisions to the National Strategic Framework to Address Alcohol-related Harm, as well as a template local ordinance to be shared with local government units to promote the implementation of alcohol use screening, brief intervention and referral services. Michael Bulatao presented on how his fellowship model on pertussis vaccination for pregnant women is now being rolled out as the teaching case in the Philippines D2P and is also being advanced to the Health Technology Assessment Council to consider updating the vaccination schedule.  

On the final day, participants presented 22 capstone projects spanning cervical cancer screening, maternal and child health, vaccination, communicable disease management, road safety, mental health, and more. These models represent a pipeline of locally-led evidence that can inform national health policy and serve as teaching cases for future training programs. Vital Strategies, Vanderbilt, and the CDC Foundation will continue to provide mentoring and technical support as participants finalize their analyses and advance their findings to policymakers.