When I'm not working on MS health economics, I spend my time caring for my son and with family and friends. I enjoy listening to my son play a variety of musical instruments and I try to keep up with him by playing piano. I enjoy cooking and spending time in the garden. Travel is also something I enjoy if I can find the time!

This is my eighth year working as a multiple sclerosis (MS) health economist and I am grateful for the opportunity to continue my work in the field. I've learnt a lot over that time about where we do things well in calculating health economic burden of MS, but also about where the gaps are. As an economist and health economist I'm very interested in the broader societal perspective when calculating health economic impact. It's not just about the direct medical costs. Flow on effects to families and carers should be included in health economics analysis. Also, the flow on effects to people living with MS and their families and carers in the years preceding diagnosis are crucially important to be understood and included. Additionally, we have a lot to learn about the National Disability Insurance Scheme and how access and equity to the Scheme can be improved for people living with MS.

The science inspires me every day; this science is working towards curing MS or halting or slowing disability severity to improve the lives of people living with MS and their families and supporters. As a health economist I calculate the cost saved if we can halt or slow MS-related disability severity, or even the cost saved if we can cure or stop MS. In the Menzies MS Research Flagship team, I am surrounded by global leaders in MS science and epidemiology, and their work inspires me to provide support from a health economics perspective.

My first project of postdoctoral work on the cost estimates of MS in Australia were based on traditional health economic methods where the total direct and indirect cost (productivity) was estimated to be $2.5 billion in 2021. My vision is to build on this work to adopt modern health economics thinking and methods regarding novel elements of value and appropriately measure and incorporate these new elements of value into this health economics analysis. These novel elements of value include elements that are broader (and more difficult to value from an economics standpoint; but this does not mean they should not be valued!) and important for people living with MS. These elements include the impacts on families and their supporters, the value of hope, broader productivity impacts including wage discrimination for women and marginalised groups living with MS, equity impacts and the value of scientific advances (from the perspective of the people living with MS). This will help us estimate the broader societal economic burden of MS; and assess the health economic impact of programs, interventions and systems that aim to improve the lives of people with MS and reduce the societal burden of MS.

Health economics analysis is important because it is a necessary component for reimbursement decisions such as medications decisions with the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) for disease modifying therapies. My next program of work will include, for example, the impacts that increasing MS-related disability severity has on families and supporters, and the value of hope and productivity. A new branch of work in MS labour economics will investigate the potential double burden of wage discrimination for women and marginalised groups living with MS. In turn, including all these broader impacts will likely render an intervention cost-effective because increased disability severity means increased health economic impact (including costs and quality of life).

I enjoy everything about working collaboratively with MS Australia and the Menzies MS Research Flagship team. I also enjoy working collaboratively with other MS and economics researchers within Australia and internationally. Working on the health economic impact of MS enables me to work with my scientific colleagues when they require an economics perspective to their work. This is another rewarding component of my role - when I'm called upon to provide health economics analysis to a project that is strong from a scientific or epidemiological perspective, to provide a broader perspective to the analysis. In my latest project, I will be working with labour economists to investigate the impact of MS from a wage discrimination perspective for women and marginalised groups living with MS - we call this a double burden because women in Australia already earn less than men. What is the additional burden for women living with MS?