RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Katherine Boothe’s broad research interest is in the qualitative study of variation in health and social policies: why do jurisdictions choose different responses to similar policy problems, and what opportunities and challenges do these different policies present for reform?
Boothe’s current research examines the adoption and reform of drug assessment and reimbursement policies in Canada and internationally. This research is concerned with changing conceptions of legitimacy as they relate to rationing of public health resources. Specifically, it investigates the processes of health technology assessment (HTA) that many public drug plans use to determine which pharmaceutical products are eligible for public funding, and the expansion of public and patient involvement in HTA in Canada since the early 2000s. More information for research participants (password protected link).
Boothe’s 2015 University of Toronto Press book, Ideas and the Pace of Change, compares the development or non-development of nation-wide pharmaceutical insurance in Canada, the UK, and Australia, in order to explain why Canada is the only mature welfare state that does not provide broad public coverage for drugs. Dr. Danielle Martin reviewed the book in the Literary Review of Canada, saying that it “addresses an issue that should concern us all. We have a drug problem in Canada: a problem of high prices, poor access and variable quality of prescribing. Change is needed.”
Boothe was an expert witness at the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health’s 2016 hearings on national pharmacare in Canada, participated in consultations for the 2019 Advisory Committee on the Implementation of National Pharmacare, and has published a number of op-eds on pharmacare in Canada. Links to News page?
