Koen Pouwels
Phd
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Koen joined Oxford Population Health's Health Economics Research Centre (HERC) as a senior researcher in January 2019.
His current work focuses on infectious disease and antimicrobial resistance modelling, randomised trial designs, economic evaluations alongside trials, incorporating long-term effects into economic evaluations, and statistical approaches to address time-dependent confounding in burden of illness studies.
His work has directly informed national COVID-19 mitigation and testing strategies, vaccination policies against various infectious diseases, as well as national targets for antibiotic prescribing in primary care.
Prior to joining HERC, Koen worked at Public Health England on projects using mathematical, statistical and machine learning approaches to understand and predict the development and health-economic impact of healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistance.
Before coming to the UK, he obtained his PhD in epidemiology at the University of Groningen where he was also involved in a number of economic evaluations of vaccinations against infectious diseases.
Recent publications
Using oral and parenteral formulation of AWaRe antibiotics as a proxy estimate of community and hospital healthcare sector use.
Journal article
Lim C. et al, (2026), JAC Antimicrob Resist, 8
Benchmarking AWaRe: estimating optimal levels of AWaRe antibiotic use in 186 countries, territories and areas based on clinical infection and resistance burden.
Journal article
Pouwels K. et al, (2026), The Lancet Public Health
AWaRe antibiotic prescribing for common acute infections in private primary care in low-middle-income countries: a patient-level analysis using IQVIA prescriber surveys from Pakistan, Egypt and Indonesia.
Journal article
Nguyen N. et al, (2026), BMJ Glob Health, 11
How to design a ROCI (Response Over Continuous Intervention) randomised trial: guidance and a case study.
Journal article
Quartagno M. et al, (2026), BMC Med Res Methodol
The epidemiological effect and cost-effectiveness of expanded age eligibility for recombinant zoster vaccination in England.
Journal article
Ku C-C. et al, (2026), Vaccine, 78
