Dr Paul Mitchell
B COM(Galway), MEcon SC(Galway), PhD(Birm.)
Expertise
Health economic analyst, with a particular interest in the inclusion of equity considerations within such analysis. I am part of the team developing and valuing ICECAP capability wellbeing measures for children and young people.
Current positions
Senior Lecturer in Health Economics and Health Policy Analysis
Bristol Medical School (PHS)Senior Research Fellow in Health Economics
Bristol Medical School (PHS)
Contact
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Biography
Paul has worked at the University of Bristol since 2016, with a six-month Wellcome funded secondment to the Centre for Thriving Places in 2020/21. His initial role in Bristol was a joint post funded by NIHR CLARHC West and the UK Renal Registry. He has previously held research roles at King’s College London and the University of Birmingham. Paul studied for his PhD in health economics at the University of Birmingham (2010-13), having previously studied Economics at undergraduate and postgraduate level at the University of Galway, Ireland.
Research interests
Paul Mitchell is a Senior Lecturer/Research Fellow in Health Economics and Health Policy Analysis at Health Economics Bristol (HEB), University of Bristol. His work focuses on the measurement and valuation of outcomes. He also has a particular interest in the application of the Capability Approach to informing public policy decision making. Currently, his main research is on a Wellcome funded project that involves the development and valuation of capability measures for children and young people, building on previous work done in measuring adult capabilities using the ICECAP measures. Paul is leading the valuation part of this research.
Paul has over a decade of experience in the area of health economics. He undertook his PhD in the University of Birmingham, which focused on the application of capability measures and the capability approach to health and care decision making. He developed sufficient capability as an alternative objective to use in health economic evaluation compared to QALY maximisation. Previously, he has held research positions at the University of Birmingham and King's College London. He has led various studies using the ICECAP capability wellbeing measures.
In 2020, Paul was funded as a Principal Investigator by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) to undertake COVID-19 relevant research, leading a collaboration of researchers from the UK, Australia and the Netherlands. He is also Co-Investigator on projects funded by the ESRC Healthy Aging Programme (Principal Investigator: Helen Manchester) and MRC/NIHR EME Programme (Principal Investigator: Alastair Hay).
In terms of teaching, Paul is co-unit lead for the "Economics & Policy of Health & Care: the UK in a global setting" on the new MSc in Health Economics and Health Policy Analysis that starts in September 2022.
Paul is currently supervising three PhD students, one as lead supervisor. He would be interested in supervising students with an interest in the application of the capability approach in health economics and the use of economic valuation methods such as discrete choice experiments.
Paul is a coordinator of the Health and Disability Thematic Group at the Human Development and Capability Association. He is a frequent participant at health economics and related conferences and has mentored two PhD students through the iHEA mentoring scheme. He has published in topic leading academic journals such as Quality of Life Research and Social Science & Medicine.
Paul was awarded a Wellcome secondment fellowship to work outside of academia and develop policy engagement experience by supporting the work of the charity The Centre for Thriving Places, providing them with research expertise for six months in 2020/21. He is keen to work with policymakers at local, regional, national and international levels who are interested in using wellbeing measures to aid their decision making.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
8071 - ES/V016016/1 - BMS - Paul Mitchell - Healthy Ageing
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Bristol Medical School (PHS)Dates
01/03/2021 to 29/02/2024
Publications
Selected publications
01/08/2015Assessing sufficient capability
Social Science and Medicine
The Relative Impacts of Disease on Health Status and Capability Wellbeing
PLOS ONE
Challenges in developing capability measures for children and young people for use in the economic evaluation of health and care interventions
Health Economics
Recent publications
25/06/2025Patient perceptions of primary care rapid respiratory microbiological point-of-care-testing
BMJ Open
Preferences for health-related quality of life: do they vary by age? A systematic literature review on the EQ-5D measure
European Journal of Health Economics
Understanding what matters to young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions
Social Science & Medicine
Is well-becoming important for children and young people? Evidence from in-depth interviews with children and young people, and their parents
Quality of Life Research
Key insights into developing qualitative concept elicitation work for outcome measures with children and young people
Patient
Teaching
Paul also participates in a 2-hour interdisciplinary session to the University of Bristol 2nd year Medical undergraduate students.
Paul has supervised four Health Economics and Health Policy Analysis MSc dissertations. One student published their dissertation in the European Journal of Health Economics in 2025.
Paul was awarded a Fellowship by the Higher Education Authority in 2021.