Professor (Visiting)

Alec MORTON

“The only purposeful way that one can influence the future is by making decisions.” (Ralph Keeney)

Alec is a multidisciplinary scientist who has worked, to date, in schools of engineering, social science, business, and public health. His overriding professional interest is in how to support decision makers in health services, public health and social policy to make wise decisions which are based on facts, evidence and knowledge, and aligned to social values. He is an author of the WHO working paper What counts in economic evaluations in health?

Concurrently with his appointment at NUS, Alec is Professor of Management Science at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. During a sabbatical in 2022, he was based at HITAP at the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health and Departmental Editor of Healthcare Management Science.

Affiliation

  • NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
  • Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde

Research Areas

  • Decision analysis
  • Operations Research in healthcare
  • Health Economics
  • Priority-setting in healthcare
  • Health Technology Assessment

Teaching Areas

  • Health Economics and Outcomes Research
  • Health Technology Assessment
  • Health Economic modelling

Academic/Professional Qualifications

  • BSc Mathematics and Philosophy (University of Manchester), 1995
  • MSc Operational Research (University of Strathclyde), 1997
  • PhD Management Science (University of Strathclyde), 2000

Career History

  • Senior Business Technology Analyst, Singapore Airlines Cargo, 1999-2002
  • Research Fellow, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, NUS, 2003-2004
  • Lecturer/ Senior Lecturer in Management Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. 2004-2013
  • Professor of Management Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. 2013- (Head of Department, 2019-2022)
  • Visiting Professor at University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. 2014-2017.
  • Visiting Professor at School of Public Health, NUS, 2023-2025

Professional/Consulting Activities

  • Expert advisory roles for
    • UK National Audit Office
    • UK Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and Department of Energy and Climate Change
    • NICE
    • Unicef
    • Chinese National Health Commission
    • Chief Medical Officer of England
    • Chief Medical Officer of Scotland
    • GAVI
    • Office of Health Economics
    • Center for Global Development
    • Mental Health Foundation
  • Official PhD examining or promotion review roles for
    • University of Middlesex
    • University of Stockholm
    • EAWAG at ETH Zurich
    • Queen Mary University of London
    • National University of Singapore
    • University of Lisbon
    • Aalto University
    • London School of Economics
    • University of Southern Denmark
    • Carnegie Mellon University
    • Chinese Academy of Sciences
    • University of Malta
    • Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri/ Open University
    • University of Ghana
  • Consultancy for
    • Center for Global Development
    • UK Environment Agency
    • UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, HITAP
    • UK Department of Health
    • Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Unitaid
    • WHO Global Malaria programme
    • AstraZeneca
    • Pfizer
    • UK National Audit Office
  • Research funded by
    • Health Foundation
    • European Commission
    • Department of Health
    • UK Medical Research Council
    • UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
    • Chief Scientist’s Office of the Scottish NHS

Selected Publications

  • Barlow, E., Morton, A., Dabak, S., Engels, S., Isaranuwatchai, W., Teerawattananon, Y. & Chalkidou, K. (2022) What is the value of explicit priority setting for health interventions? A simulation study. Health Care Management Science. 25: 460–483
  • Barlow, E., Morton, A., Megiddo, I., Colson, A. (2022) Optimal subscription models to pay for antibiotics. Social Science and Medicine.  298: 114818.
  • Colson, A. R., Morton, A., Årdal, C., Chalkidou, K., Davies, S. C., Garrison, L. P., Jit, M., Laxminarayan, R., Megiddo, I., Morel, C. M., Nonvignon, J., Outterson, K., Rex, J. H., Sarker, A. R., Sculpher, M., Woods, B. & Xiao (2021) Antimicrobial resistance: is health technology assessment part of the solution or part of the problem? Value in Health 24(12):1828–1834
  • Shaw, D. and Morton, A. (2020) Counting the cost of denying assisted dying. Clinical Ethics. 15(2): 65-70.
  • Morton, A., Colson, A., Leporowski. A., Trett, A., Bhatti, T., Laxminarayan, R. (2019) How should the value attributes of novel antibiotics be considered in reimbursement decision making? Medical Decision Making  Policy & Practice. 4(2)
  • Hauck K., Morton A., Chalkidou K., Chi Y.-L., Culyer A., Levin C., Meacock R., Over M., Thomas R., Vassall A., Verguet S., Smith P.C. (2019) How can we evaluate the cost-effectiveness of health system strengthening? A typology and illustrations. Social Science and Medicine. 220: 141-149.
  • Morton, A., Bach, P. B., Briggs, A. (2018). Enhancing the Value of the ASCO Value framework.  Medical Decision Making – Policy and Practice. 3(1)
  • Morton, A., Arulselvan, A., Thomas, R. (2018) Allocation rules for Global Donors. Journal of Health Economics. 58:67-75.
  • van Baal, P. H., Morton, A., Severens, J. L. (2018). Health care input constraints and cost effectiveness analysis decision rules. Social Science and Medicine 200: 59-64.
  • Karsu, Ö., Morton, A. & Argyris, N. (2018) Capturing preferences for inequality aversion in decision support. European Journal of Operational Research.  264(2):  686-706.
  • Van Baal, P., Morton, A., Meltzer, D., Brower, W. and Davis, S. (2017) Head to Head: Should cost effectiveness analyses for NICE always consider future unrelated medical costs? British Medical Journal, 359.
  • Morton, A. (2017). Treacle and smallpox: Two tests for Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis models in Health Technology Assessment.  Value in Health.   20 (3): 512–515.

Click here to see full list of publications. 

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