Asociación Científica Psicost
PSICOST Scientific Association (Psicost) is a non-profit research association created in 1999 to carry out multidisciplinary studies of evaluation of mental health services, including investigators of different disciplines, and research centres in academia, provider organisations and public health agencies. Psicost is one of the main research reference networks in mental health systems research in Spain. It has carried out significant contributions in the evaluation of public health services in a series of national and international projects, and it has played a major role in the development of tools such as DESDE and methods for health systems research in Europe, Australia and Latin America; and in the development of decision support systems for evidence-informed mental health planning in these world regions.
Main tasks in the project
Its main contribution to the project is related to Horizontal Activity 2 (HA2): definition of services supporting unit cost calculation for WPs1-4.
Expertise of staff members involved
Dr Luis Salvador-Carulla (Principal Investigator)Dr Luis Salvador-Carulla (PhD), honorary president and active member of PSICOST. He is the head of the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Research School of Population Health, Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra (Australia). He has been advisor to the Government of Catalonia (Spain), the Spanish Ministry of Health, the European Commission (EC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). His research has been focused in developing decision support systems in health and social policy, including tools for analysis of technical efficiency and benchmarking, indicators for health policy analysis and priority setting in mental health and in disability.
Prof. Carlos R. García-AlonsoProf. Carlos R. García-Alonso (PhD), Professor of Operational Research and Quantitative Methods. He holds a Ph.D in Engineering. He focuses his research on mental health problems and models of simulation related with efficiency. He has supervised researchers in several Spanish funded projects, and participated as a researcher in different European funded projects.
Dr Mencía R. Gutierrez-ColosíaDr Mencía R. Gutierrez-Colosía (PhD), psychologist. She is an expert in the DESDE-LTC and on mental health services research. As a member of Psicost, she has participated in European and national funded projects focusing on the evaluation of services and financing systems.
Dr Cristina RomeroDr Cristina Romero, PhD in Psychology (female). President of Psicost. Expert on service evaluation research in disability and mental health. Specialist in clinical psychology. Member of Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Madrid, Spain
Dr Pilar Campoy-MuñozDr Pilar Campoy-Muñoz, PhD in Business Administration and Law. Her main research focus is on economic impact assessment. She has participated in a national funded project focusing on the financing of mental healthcare.
Nerea AlmedaNerea Almeda (Research Assistant), health psychologist. She focuses her research on efficiency assessment, causal modelling and design of decision support systems for guiding mental health care management and planning. She has participated in national funded projects focusing on assessing efficiency of mental health systems.