Research and Professional Experience
Dr. John F P Bridges is Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy & Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and also a Research Economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), New York and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, New York. Born and educated in Australia, John has spent his professional career in North America and Europe. In 2002 he graduated from the City University of New York, where he studied Health Economics under Professor Michael Grossman. In July 2002 he was appointed Assistant Professor in Health Services Research at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, USA. In July 2004 he moved to the University of Heidelberg School of Medicine, Germany, to head a group of young researchers in “International Health Economics and Outcomes Research”. In July 2006 he joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he continues his research and international collaborations in outcomes research. John has a truly international perspective on health care, having taught and/or performed research on 5 continents, in both developing and developed countries, and has worked with international organizations like the OECD, WHO and World Bank. John has a unique vision for the economic evaluation of medicines given that he does not support the prevailing paradigm of cost-effectiveness. Rather, he has advocated looking towards the future, focusing on issues like patient centered care, patient preferences, innovation, health tourism and health care as a driver of economic growth.
An economist by training, Dr. Bridges conducts health and medical research at the intersection of disciplines of pharmacoeconomics & outcomes research, health economics, and health services research. His primary focus is on the application of patient centred research methods in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research, specifically focusing on the measurement of patients’ and other stakeholders’ preferences using conjoint analysis and contingent valuation methods. His contributions to health economics have focused on the role that risk and uncertainty should play in decision making (including Cost-Effectiveness Analysis), using methods from finance theory such as portfolio analysis to demonstrate how risk across a range of interventions could be measured and managed. Finally, he has contributed to the health services research literature though the application of econometric method to the risk adjustment of adverse events in a number of hospital and non-hospital settings, with specific attention on the effects that organization and team characteristics have on the quality of care.
Selected Publications
Patient centered Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes research Bridges J, Onukwugha E, Johnson FR, Hauber AB (2007) “Patient Preference Methods – A Patient Centered Evaluation Paradigm”, ISPOR Connections, Vol 13, No 6, pp4-7.
Loukanova S, Molnar, R, and Bridges J (2007) ‘Promoting patient empowerment in the health care system: Highlighting the need for patient-centered drug policy’, Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, 7(3) 281-289.
Akkazieva, B, Gulacsi, L, Brandtmuller, A, Pentekk, M. and Bridges, J. (2006) ‘Patients’ Preferences for Health Care System Reform in Hungary: A Conjoint Analysis Study’, Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Vol. 5, No. 3:189-98.
Bridges, J. (2006) ‘Lean systems approaches to Health Technology Assessment: A patient focused alternative to cost-effectiveness analysis’, Pharmacoeconomics, 24 (suppl. 2):101-109.
Vogt, F, Schwappach, D and Bridges J, (2006) ‘Accounting for tastes: A German perspective on the inclusion of patient preferences in health care’, Pharmacoeconomics, 24(5): 419-23.
Bridges, J. (2006) ‘What can economics add to health technology assessment? Please not another cost-effectiveness analysis!’ Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, Vol. 6, No. 1, 19-24.
Bridges J. 2005. ‘Future Challenges for the Economic Evaluation of Healthcare: Patient Preferences, Risk Attitudes and Beyond’, Pharmacoeconomics, 23(4): 317-21.
Vogt, F, Schwappach, D and Bridges J, (2006) ‘Accounting for tastes: A German perspective on the inclusion of patient preferences in health care’, Pharmacoeconomics, 24(5): 419-23.
Bridges, J. 2003 ‘Stated preference methods in health care evaluation: an emerging methodological paradigm in health economics’, Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 2(4), pp213-224.
Portfolio theory Bridges, J, 2004 ‘Understanding the risks associated with resource allocation decisions in health: A illustration of the importance of portfolio theory’, Health, Risk and Society, 6(3): 257 - 275.
Bridges, J. and Terris, D., 2004 ‘Portfolio Evaluation of Health Programs: A Reply to Sendi et al’, Social Science and Medicine, 58, pp1849-1851.
Graff Zivin, J and Bridges, J, 2002 ‘Addressing risk preferences in cost-effectiveness analyses’ Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 1(3), pp135-9.
Bridges, J, Stewart, M, King, M and van Gool K, 2002 ‘Adapting Portfolio Theory for the Evaluation of Multiple Investments in Health with a Multiplicative Extension for Treatment Synergies’, The European Journal of Health Economics, 3(1), pp47-53.
Econometrics and risk adjustment Feldman P, Bridges J and Peng, T. (2007) Team Structure and Adverse Events in Home Health Care, Medical Care, 45(6) pp 553-561.
Scharpf T, Colabianchi, N, Madigan, E. Neuhauser, D. Feldman, P, Bridges J, 2006. ‘Functional status decline as a measure of adverse events in home health care’ BMC Health Services Research, 6:162 (20 December 2006)
Tsai AC, Votruba M, Bridges J, Cebul RD. 2006. Overcoming Bias in Estimating the Volume-Outcome Relationship, Health Services Research, 41(1): 252-264.
Bridges, J., Dor, A. and Grossman, M. 2005 ‘A Wolf Dressed in Sheep’s Clothing: Perhaps Quality Measures are Just Unmeasured Severity’, Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 4(1): 55-64.
Terris, D. and Bridges, J. 2004 ‘Understanding the art and science of risk adjustment’, The Gerontologist, 44: 439-443.
