Trade-offs. Choices. Decisions

About Professor Trudy Sullivan's research

Trudy is a health economist whose work is collaborative and community-focused, reflecting a strong commitment to addressing real-world challenges in health care decision-making.

She completed an honours degree in economics before working in the health sector and later undertook a PhD that strengthened her focus on applied research. Her research is broad in scope, encompassing economic analysis and the implementation of priority-setting frameworks to support decision-making within publicly funded services.

She has a particular interest in health-related quality of life, which led to her becoming a member of the EuroQol Group – an international network of multidisciplinary researchers – and to developing a programme of research focussed on valuing quality of life measures that are widely used to inform resource allocation. Her approach is grounded in a simple principle: if you want to understand what people think, ask them.

Trudy is committed to improving equity and access through health economics, and brings this commitment to her teaching, supervision, and leadership. She is Deputy Head of the Department of Public Health in Dunedin and maintains strong national and international connections, including secondments to the Ministry of Health as Principal Academic Advisor.

This lecture will be followed with light refreshments, tea, coffee and juice.

Livestream information

This event will be livestreamed from 5:25pm, Wednesday 14 October 2026.

Livestream Professor Trudy Sullivan's IPL