On Friday, September 14, Director Business Development Martijn Kriens and Data Analyst Chiara Bozzacchi gave a guest lecture to third-year students in the Health Economics course at VU Amsterdam. The lecture was attended by 50 students.

Martijn Kriens explained how ahti uses real world data to map out specific health situations to find out which factors influence these. In this way, ahti helps policymakers develop the most effective interventions.

Combining data sources for better insights

Ahti’s data team designed an assignment for the students based on one of the projects our data team is actually carrying out. Students were provided with different open source data, including health insurance costs from 2016, social economic status score and demographic information over the whole of the Netherlands.

Their task was to analyze and combine these data to create insights about the costs related to mental health in the city of Amsterdam, identify a target group and develop possible hypotheses based on their results.

Students worked on this assignment in groups of three and sent their findings and conclusions to ahti. Coen van de Kraats, lecturer of Health Economics, rated the assignments together with ahti’s data team.

The outcome of this analysis contributes to explain mental health variations among different groups of people in Amsterdam, also by comparing them to other urban areas, and helps the development of the suitable interventions for the right target group.