The Disability Wellbeing Index (DWI) has been developed by Monash Business School’s Centre for Health Economics, with funding from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), to provide a robust measure of what matters most to people with disabilities.

We are delighted to formally launch the DWI, and outline its purpose, structure, and intended applications across disability policy, service delivery, and evaluation.

Presenters will explain its development, including the co-design and validation work undertaken to ensure the DWI reflects the priorities and lived experiences of people with disabilities.

Our launch session will be of interest to policymakers, service providers, researchers, and stakeholders seeking to strengthen outcome measurement frameworks through tools that are evidence-informed, inclusive, and aligned with contemporary understandings of wellbeing.

Speakers

Professor Gang Chen, University of Melbourne

Prof Chen is a Professor at the Melbourne School of Population & Global Health, and an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School.

As a health economist, he has made significant contributions to the measurement and valuation of quality of life and subjective wellbeing for economic evaluation, as well as to the design and conduct of novel health preference research to quantify health preference.

He was awarded an ARC DECRA Fellowship to reveal what matters most for subjective wellbeing across lifetimes. Commissioned by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), Prof Chen led a multi-disciplinary team to develop the person-centred, preference-based DWI, supporting priority setting for disability-related initiatives.

Professor Dennis Petrie, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School

Prof Petrie co-leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Achieving Health Equity for All People with Disability (AHEAD). His research focuses on improving health and wellbeing outcomes for disadvantaged populations, particularly people with disabilities, through the application of health economics, policy evaluation, and the analysis of large linked data sources. He works closely with policymakers, health professionals, and people with lived experience to inform evidence-based decisions. Prof Petrie has led numerous projects evaluating the equity and efficiency of healthcare and social support programs.

Professor Anthony Harris, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School

Prof Harris is the former Director of the Centre for Health Economics and its PhD program in health economics. His research has included several econometric studies of the healthcare system, and the measurement of health outcomes in health and disability. He has a number of long-term clinical collaborations, particularly for modelled and trial based economic evaluations of interventions to reduce musculoskeletal disease. He has been leader of a team evaluating medicines and other health technologies for the Australian and Singapore governments since 2001.

Dr Samia Badji, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School

Dr Badji is a Senior Research Fellow. Her research focuses on improving policies that affect healthcare use, health, and wellbeing of people with disability and their carers through the analysis of large, complex linked data and promoting its effective use. Her work spans small-scale projects to multi-million-dollar, multi-institution, cross-disciplinary collaborations with organisations including the World Health Organization, DSS, and NDIA. She contributed to all surveys in the DWI project and worked on DWI item aggregation, ranking life domains in the NDIS Outcomes Framework, and mapping its questions to DWI scoring.

Associate Professor Kim Bulkeley, University of Sydney

A/Prof Bulkeley is co-Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Strengthening Rehabilitation Capacity in Health Systems at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Disability Research and Policy. A/Prof Bulkeley has more than 30 years’ experience in the community disability sector in front line, management, policy and research roles. She is a senior academic in the Occupational Therapy Discipline, promoting critical disability perspectives and the inclusion of lived experience educators. Telepractice, task sharing and workforce redesign are features of Kim’s research, engaging with people with disability, community partners and service providers through action research methods.

Dr Gozde Aydin, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School

Dr Aydin is a Research Fellow, and Project Manager of the DWI project as well as the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Achieving Health Equity for All People with Disability (AHEAD). She is a mixed-method researcher and her current research interests focus on co-design in health settings, quality of life, and health preferences. She also works across several national projects that contribute to the development of evidence-informed policy and practice in the disability and health sector.

Mr David Kay, National Disability Insurance Agency

Mr Kay is a strategic advisor in the Policy and Practice Leadership division of the NDIA. He is leading the work to develop a new NDIS outcomes framework, which will define and measure the outcomes for NDIS participants, government, and the community more broadly from investment in and support delivered through the scheme.

Organised by

The Centre for Health Economics at Monash Business School.

Contact the host of Disability Wellbeing Index launch

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