Wei Zhang  MA, PhD Candidate
ARC Trainee

School of Population and Public Health,
University of British Columbia

Appointments
Health Economist
Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences (CHEOS)
St Paul's Hospital, Vancouver

Wei Zhang is currently a PhD student at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health under the supervision of Dr Aslam Anis. She is a health economist at the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences at St Paul's Hospital Vancouver.

In Wei’s thesis, she will develop questions and methods to measure and value work productivity loss due to health problems based on the concept of a production function, where output is a function of capital input, labour input and technology. Specifically, she is to develop a new instrument for measuring productivity loss and to investigate its validity and test-retest reliability among people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to measure the impact of individual employees’ sickness absence on their employer’s output and develop wage multipliers, representing the actual output value, for different job types and workplace characteristics using the Workplace and Employee Survey. The research will help better understand the burden of illness such as RA and evaluate the true benefits to society from implementing health care interventions that improve productivity. Wei’s research interests also include economic evaluations and health outcome measurement.

Relevant publications:

1. Zhang W, Bansback N, Kopec J, Anis A. Measuring time input loss among patients with rheumatoid arthritis: validity and reliability of the Valuation of Lost Productivity questionnaire (VOLP). Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Epub 2011 Apr 19.
2. Zhang W, Bansback N, Anis AH. Measuring and valuing productivity loss due to poor health: A critical review. Social Science & Medicine. 2011;72(2):185-92.
3. Zhang W, Bansback N, Boonen A, Young A, Singh A, Anis AH. Validity of Work Productivity and Activity Impairment questionnaire - general health version (WPAI-GH) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Research Therapy. 2010;12(5):R177.
4. Zhang W, Gignac MAM, Beaton D, Tang K, Anis AH, on behalf of the Canadian Arthritis Network Work Productivity Group. Productivity loss due to presenteeism among patients with arthritis: estimates from 4 instruments. Journal of Rheumatology. 2010;37(9):1805-14.
5. Anis A, Zhang W, Emery P, Sun H, Singh A, Freundlich B, Sato R. The effect of etanercept on work productivity in patients with early active rheumatoid arthritis: results from the COMET Study. Rheumatology. 2009;48:1283-9.
6. Zhang W, Bansbank N, Guh D, Li X, Nosyk B, Marra CA, Anis AH. Short-term influence of adalimumab on work productivity outcomes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Journal of Rheumatology. 2008;35:1729-36.