Dr Thomas Mason

Senior Lecturer in Health Economics

Profile

Tom studies the effects of policy interventions on health and economic outcomes. His research focuses on the following areas:

Methods for causal inference
Regional economic policy
Supply and demand in the health care labour market
The economics of addiction
The effects of financial incentives in health care
The measurement of inequalities in chronic disease

He is interested in how policies and organisational arrangements affect the behaviours and outcomes of individuals and institutions, and how these impacts can be estimated using microeconometric methods.

Tom is a co-investigator on over £13m of externally awarded research funding, from funders including the NIHR, MRC, the DHSC Policy Research Programme and NHS England. His current externally funded projects include:

leading a quantitative evaluation of the economic and health effects of regional economic policy (community wealth building), using modern quasi-experimental approaches such as synthetic control and Callaway and Sant'Anna difference-in-differences (NIHR169449, £1.6m);
co-leading the drug and alcohol theme of the Lancaster NIHR Mental Health Research Group, quantifying the consequences of co-occurring acute mental health and addiction disorders (NIHR502773, £11.3m);
estimating the effects of nurse continuity of care on patient outcomes and health care use, using propensity score matching and large-scale primary care data (NIHR Three Schools, £100k).

Tom is co-Director of Research in the Division of Health Research at Lancaster University, and a member of the NIHR Public Health Research Programme Funding Committee, providing economics expertise. He is co-convenor of the economics network for the NIHR School for Public Health Research, and co-ordinates the international health economics mailing list on JISCMail.

His research has informed national policy and NHS decision-making. A public health resource allocation formula he co-developed was adopted by the Department of Health as the basis for target allocations of the public health grant from 2016, and his evaluations have been commissioned by and reported to bodies including NHS England, the Department of Health and the Home Office.

My Role

Tom is co-Director of Research in the Division of Health Research

External Roles

Tom is a member of the NIHR Public Health Research Programme Funding Committee, providing economics expertise.

He is co-convenor of the economics network for the NIHR School for Public Health Research, and co-ordinates the international health economics mailing list on JISCMail

He is a longstanding member of the HESG group, and contributor to the recently created NWHEG and NIHR Economics Groups.

He is a reviewer for economics/health journals and provides expert advice to studies funded by organisations such as the NIHR, and he sits on the steering committee of two NIHR funded clinical trials.

Research Grants

Research Grants at Lancaster University:

Funding source: NIHR Mental Health Research Group Award. (awarded in 2026). Role: Co-lead of the drug and alcohol research theme.

Funding source: NIHR Three Research Schools Prevention Research Programme: 'What is the association between primary care nurse continuity and secondary prevention in patients with long term conditions?' (2026 - present)

Funding source: NIHR Public Health Research (NIHR169449). Community Wealth Building Evaluation: Learning Lessons from Scotland - a mixed method evaluation of the impact of community wealth building on economic and health outcomes and health inequalities (CoWBELLs) (2025 - present)

Funding source: NIHR Research Support Service Research Methods Fund Award. How can we use routinely collected data to evaluate public mental health interventions? (2025 - present)

Current Teaching

Current:

DHR409 Applied Health Economics (Module Lead) (2023 - present)
DHR403 Principles of Research Design and Practical Research Ethics (Supervisor) (2023 - present)
DHR499 Dissertation (Supervisor) 2023 - present

DHR529 Data Analysis (Module Lead) 2023 & 2024

Qualifications

BA(Hons) Economics and Politics, MSc Economics, PhD, FHEA

PhD Supervisions Completed

Peslie Ng'ambi (2022)

Thesis Title

Substance misuse related hospital admissions, costs and treatment outcomes: econometric analysis of administrative data for England

Career Details

Prior to 2023

Tom studied his BA(Hons) in Economics and Politics (2005-2008) at Keele University, and an MSc in Economics from the University of Manchester in (2009-2010), with a focus on econometrics.

He was later awarded a PhD at University of Manchester, where he worked as a Research Associate and Fellow. His teaching activity at Manchester included teaching Econometrics to BSc Economics students, and the Economics of Health to MSc Economics students.

He have worked as a Senior Research Analyst in private sector health economics consultancies producing research for government agencies, third sector and pharmaceutical clients.

PhD Supervision Interests

Tom currently supervises PhD students on a range of topics across his research expertise, including estimating the effects of AI-assisted diagnosis in breast cancer screening, the impacts of admission to hospital at the weekend or weeknight for emergency care outcomes, the productivity impacts of the adoption of scribes in secondary care, and the effects of COVID-19 on inequalities in cancer care in England. He is happy to accept enquiries for PhD study on questions across his research interests.