{"id":3408,"date":"2025-10-29T09:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T13:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/?p=3408"},"modified":"2026-02-09T11:16:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:16:42","slug":"driven-by-curiosity-focused-on-care-meet-mehdi-ammi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/2025\/driven-by-curiosity-focused-on-care-meet-mehdi-ammi\/","title":{"rendered":"Driven by Curiosity, Focused on Care: Meet Mehdi Ammi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Driven by Curiosity, Focused on Care: Meet Mehdi Ammi\n <\/h1>\n \n \n \n\n

Field Notes: Research Profile<\/strong>
Mehdi Ammi, School of Public Policy & Administration<\/p>\n\n\n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

\"Portrait<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mehdi Ammi investigates the long-term value of preventive public health spending, analyzing how smarter investments can save lives and improve population health.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Can you offer a \u201clay\u201d description of your research topic?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If only I had just one! I\u2019m half-joking there, but I\u2019m a curious person, and it seems that answering one research question tends to lead to more. There\u2019s a bit of a sprawl of research interests. Still, my research falls within health economics, health policy, health services research, and public health. Overall, I want to understand how the characteristics of health and healthcare systems can be modified to balance comprehensive access, high quality, and low cost of care, along with healthcare providers\u2019 satisfaction, and ultimately improve population health. This is known as the quintuple aim, and my research touches on different aspects of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things I\u2019m particularly interested in is the value of expenditures on public health, meaning spending that\u2019s more preventive than curative. These expenditures tend to be small, around 5% of total health spending in Canada. While there\u2019s a general sense that prevention is better than cure, I\u2019m trying to understand the differential returns of spending on preventive versus curative care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What piqued your interest in this topic?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For my overall research topic in health, I\u2019d say it\u2019s not what got me into economics in the first place. Initially, I was interested in finance \u2013 until I realized I really, really didn\u2019t like the idea of making more money from money. I discovered health economics, along with other areas related to human capital (like labour and education), and realized this was more \u201cme.\u201d Health raised fascinating problems: it\u2019s mainly public, full of market issues like information asymmetry and uncertainty, and lacks real prices to guide resource allocation. That intrigued me, and I thought, maybe research in this area could actually help improve society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the value of public health expenditures, two things made it both interesting and challenging. First, when public health succeeds, nothing happens. It prevents bad things from occurring, so how do you prove you matter when success looks like nothing? Second, despite its importance, public health is often under attack, seen as paternalistic or an easy target during austerity. Third, I kept hearing from public health professionals and decision-makers that they needed evidence to justify their budgets, especially given pressures on hospitals and primary care. I didn\u2019t know what the answer would be, but it felt like an important and fascinating puzzle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What question were you hoping to answer in your research?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to see whether public health produces results in the long run, over several decades. As I mentioned, nothing happens immediately in public health, but what about all the lives saved down the road? Can we measure that? It turns out there\u2019s some good, long-term data from national agencies and the OECD, spanning 40 to 50 years. Plus, new econometric methods now exist to address known issues in these datasets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With co-authors, we did two studies. One focused in Canada, looking at all the provinces, published last year. And one looking at OECD countries, including Canada of course, published last month. Go read them, they are both open-access thanks to Tri-Council funding: here<\/a> and here<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is something people would be surprised to learn?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The punchline is that public health spending does<\/em> make a difference in the long run. A 10% increase in public health expenditures leads to a 2% decrease in preventable mortality in Canada over the past forty years. Across OECD countries, a 10% increase in preventive spending reduces all-cause mortality by 1% and increases life expectancy at age 65 by 0.4% over fifty years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might not sound dramatic, but remember, curative spending saves lives now<\/em>, while preventive spending saves lives later<\/em>. And given that public health accounts for only around 6% of total spending in Canada in 2024 ($22 billion out of $372 billion), those long-run effects are pretty remarkable. It\u2019s not about cutting curative care, of course, people who show up in emergency rooms need treatment. But it\u2019s a reminder: just because the benefits aren’t visible right away doesn’t mean it’s not working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the biggest misconception about your research area?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number one thing I hear is that \u201chealth isn\u2019t about money.\u201d I agree. It\u2019s not about money; it\u2019s about value<\/em>. They\u2019re not the same thing. The biggest misconception is that health economists only care about cutting costs. That\u2019s completely wrong. We\u2019re social scientists trying to understand how people and societies work, including incentives, efficiency, and equity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t say, \u201ccut here.\u201d We ask, \u201cIf you had $1 more, where could it do the most good?\u201d Maybe that dollar saves more lives in prevention than in hospitals, or vice versa. Our role is to bring evidence to the table, not to dictate policy, but to help make it better informed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any new projects that you\u2019re excited about?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have too many projects, and I\u2019m excited about all of them! That\u2019s the beauty of being a professor: you choose what you want to work on (as long as you can fund it). If it doesn\u2019t excite you, you just don\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some projects I can\u2019t talk about yet. Research ideas are only good if they\u2019re original! But one I can share is a grant proposal on the impacts of public health expenditures on equity. We know these expenditures improve health in the long run, but we don\u2019t know for whom. For example, do the health gains go mostly to wealthier groups, or do they help reduce disparities? The project will develop measures of health disparities in Canada (by income, ethnicity, gender, and more) and test whether public health spending helps narrow them. What I find especially rewarding is the number of public health policy makers and practitioners involved as full partners. That\u2019s what \u201cresearch for the public good\u201d should look like in my mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s your favourite class to teach?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am in a graduate school. At the Master\u2019s level, it\u2019s my Health Policy in Canada (PADM 5221)<\/em> elective in the Master of Public Policy and Administration program. The title says it all (and if that\u2019s not obvious, you clearly weren\u2019t paying attention\u2026  go back and read from the start). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the PhD level, it\u2019s the Doctoral Seminar (PADM 6201)<\/em> in the PhD in Public Policy program. I love it because it\u2019s about teaching future researchers what a research plan really is: how to come up with interesting, answerable questions and secure the resources (financial, human, intellectual) to get the work done. The course is different every year depending on the students\u2019 interests and methodologies. It\u2019s also a humbling experience; it pushes me to revisit the foundations of social sciences. I learn something new every time I teach it. Remember, I\u2019m a curious person! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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