Professor Antonieta Medina-Lara

Antonieta Medina-Lara is Professor of Public Health Economics and Head of the Public Health Economics Group at the University of Exeter. An economist specialising in health and public health, she uses economic methods to investigate how healthcare, public policy, and wider social and environmental conditions affect population health, wellbeing and health inequalities.

     Before joining the University of Exeter in 2012, she held research and academic positions at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy; the University of Liverpool; the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; the University of East Anglia; and Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana–Azcapotzalco in Mexico City. Her career combines methodological research with applied studies addressing health-system and public-health challenges in high-, middle- and low-income settings.

    Her research focuses on the economic analysis of public-health and health and social care interventions. She applies economic methods to evaluate their costs, outcomes, cost-effectiveness and distributional consequences, with particular interests in mental health, dementia and healthy ageing, as well as food and nutrition, employment, loneliness and wellbeing. Across these areas, she aims to generate evidence that helps policymakers and practitioners design effective interventions and allocate resources more fairly and efficiently.

     Antonieta’s methodological expertise includes applied microeconometrics, economic evaluation, decision modelling, stated-preference methods and best–worst scaling, and the measurement and valuation of health and wellbeing. She is also interested in applied field experiments and the use of real-world evidence to address public-health questions.

     Antonieta has applied economic methods across a wide range of public-health and policy contexts, including mental health, dementia and healthy ageing, cancer, infectious diseases, food safety and nutrition, employment, and loneliness. Recent examples include examining the health, wellbeing and NHS cost implications of loneliness across different age groups and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of interventions in mental health, dementia care and healthy ageing. Her research spans diverse health systems and includes collaborations and projects in Belgium, France, Ghana, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, the UK and Zimbabwe. Through this work, she demonstrates how economic evidence can reveal the wider costs of public-health challenges, identify interventions that represent good value and support more effective and equitable policy decisions.

     Antonieta has led and contributed to multidisciplinary research programmes supported by national and international organisations, including the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Horizon 2020, and the World Health Organization. Her work brings together economics, public health and clinical research to generate evidence that informs healthcare policy, service delivery and decision-making across diverse health systems. She also contributes her expertise through international research partnerships and scientific advisory roles.