Overview
Key publications
Research funding
Supervising & teaching
Career
Section: Overview
Overview
Key publications
Research funding
Supervising & teaching
Career

Key details

Areas of expertise

  • Health economics
  • Emerging trends in technology and innovation
  • Investment in adolescent health and wellbeing
  • Finance of investment in health interventions
  • Assessment of interventions to reduce child marriage & gender violence

Available to supervise research students

Available for media queries

About Bruce Rasmussen

Professor Bruce Rasmussen's work has encompassed health economics, regional economics, innovation and economic development. His most recent work has been on estimating the economic returns to investment in health for WHO, UNICEF and the UNFPA, with previous work done for the US Chamber of Commerce, APEC Life Sciences Innovation Forum (LSIF) and the APEC Business Advisory Council.

Currently, with the VISES team, he is working on an investment case in adolescent wellbeing for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) (hosted at the WHO) as part of the work for the Global Forum for Adolescents in October 2023. In 2022, he led an investment case for the WHO to increase its funding levels. He recently completed a project for UNICEF on the cost of not investing in education in Syria. Results of the investigation will be presented to the Syrian Minister of Education and the Global Forum for Education in June 2023.He is also Chief Investigator in a study for the Ford Foundation on exploring ways in which China’s development finance can become more effective in providing equitable development in Global South countries.

In 2015-2016, he led the work on a UNFPA adolescent project on evaluating interventions to reduce child marriage and intimate partner violence. Other multi-country evaluation studies have estimated the benefit-cost ratios for interventions to treat disease and health conditions for children and mothers, those with mental health issues and for a range of interventions to improve the well-being of adolescents. Two papers with results were published in The Lancet (2017) and Journal of Adolescent Health (2019) on the evaluation child marriage interventions. He led work in Burundi for UNICEF to develop an investment evaluation framework to establish economic and social returns from health and education programs for adolescents.

He has also conducted research for the US Chamber of Commerce on health and productivity. This work estimated the economic cost of absenteeism, presenteeism and early retirement, with research being conducted in China.

From August 2017, Bruce was Vice Chair (Academic) of the APEC Life Sciences Innovation Forum, where he led work on encouraging Ministers and Ministries of Finance in the APEC region to more actively engage in developing innovative ways of financing health.

Previously, Bruce had a career specialising in finance, spanning the senior levels of both the public and private sectors. In government, he held a number of senior positions, most significantly as Assistant Director General, Finance in the Victorian Treasury. He also spent seven years at the ANZ Bank, where he held various senior business strategy roles, most notably as Chief Manager, Retail Strategy in the Retail Bank and Chief Manager, Development of the Private Bank.

Qualifications

  • PhD, Victoria University, Australia, 2009
  • MPA, Harvard University, USA, 1985
  • MEc, La Trobe University, Australia, 1977
  • BEc (Hons), La Trobe University, Australia, 1974

Key publications

Bruce has over 106 publications, with a selection listed here.


A more comprehensive list of Bruce's publications is available in the VU Research Repository.

Year Citation
2022 Rasmussen, B., Sheehan, P., Symons, J., Maharaj, N., Welsh, A., & Kumnick, M. (220630). Syria Education and Development Investment Case: Economic, Social and Psychological Costs and Risks Resulting from Not Investing in Education Systems in Syria. Melbourne, Australia: Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University.
2022 Sheehan, P., Rasmussen, B., Sweeny, K., Maharaj, N., & Symons, J. (220301). WHO Investment Case 2.0: Technical Report. Melbourne, Victoria: Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University.
2020 Rasmussen, B., Sweeny, K., Welsh, A., Kumnick, M., Reeve, M., & Dayal, P. (200101). Increasing Social and Economic Benefits Globally. Washington DC: United States Chamber of Commerce.
2019 Rasmussen, B., Sheehan, P., Sweeny, K., Symons, J., & Maharaj, N. (190101). Adolescent Investment Case Burundi: Estimating the Impacts of Social Sector Investments for Adolescents. Bujumbura: UNICEF Burundi.

Year Citation
2022 Ross, D. A., Friedman, H. S., Welch, D., Kaoma, N. S., Bhushan, R., & Rasmussen, B. (221027). Four powerful reasons for increasing investment in adolescents and their wellbeing. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 379

doi: 10.1136/bmj.o2526
2021 Rasmussen, B., Maharaj, N., Karan, A., Symons, J., Selvaraj, S., Kumar, R., Kumnick, M., & Sheehan, P. (210101). Evaluating interventions to reduce child marriage in India. Journal of Global Health Reports, 5

doi: 10.29392/001c.23619
2019 Rasmussen, B., Maharaj, N., Sheehan, P., & Friedman, H. S. (190701). Evaluating the Employment Benefits of Education and Targeted Interventions to Reduce Child Marriage. Journal of Adolescent Health, 65(1), (S16-S24).

doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.03.022
2018 Bertram, M. Y., Sweeny, K., Lauer, J. A., Chisholm, D., Sheehan, P., Rasmussen, B., Upreti, S. R., Dixit, L. P., George, K., & Deane, S. (180519). Investing in non-communicable diseases: an estimation of the return on investment for prevention and treatment services. The Lancet, 391(10134), (2071-2078).

doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30665-2
2018 Patton, G. C., Olsson, C. A., Skirbekk, V., Saffery, R., Wlodek, M. E., Azzopardi, P. S., Stonawski, M., Rasmussen, B., Spry, E., & Francis, K. (180221). Adolescence and the next generation. Nature, 554(7693), (458-466).

doi: 10.1038/nature25759
2017 Sheehan, P., Sweeny, K., Rasmussen, B., Wils, A., Friedman, H. S., Mahon, J., Patton, G. C., Sawyer, S. M., Howard, E., & Symons, J. (171014). Building the foundations for sustainable development: a case for global investment in the capabilities of adolescents. The Lancet, 390(10104), (1792-1806).

doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30872-3

Research funding for the past 5 years

Please note:

  • Funding is ordered by the year the project commenced and may continue over several years.
  • Funding amounts for contact research are not disclosed to maintain commercial confidentiality.
  • The order of investigators is not indicative of the role they played in the research project.

Developing Polio Transition Investment Case for Eastern Mediterranean Region
From: World Health Organization
Other investigators: Dr John Symons, Prof Peter Sheehan, Ms Margarita Kumnick
For period: 2023-2023
 Not disclosed

Development of an Investment Case for Adolescent Well-being
From: World Health Organization
Other investigators: Dr John Symons, Prof Peter Sheehan, Dr Kim Sweeny, Mrs Neelam Maharaj
For period: 2022-2024
 Not disclosed
Update of CMOI to include benefit-cost ratio estimation AND Research Report on: Investing in ending unmet need for family planning and preventable maternal deaths, ending female genital mutilation, and ending child marriage in the Arab region
From: Avenir Health
Other investigators: Ms Margarita Kumnick, Dr John Symons
For period: 2022-2022
 Not disclosed
Investment case for integration of adolescent helaht/NCDs in primary helath care in East Asisa Pacific
From: MacFarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health Ltd
Other investigators: Dr Kim Sweeny
For period: 2022-2023
 Not disclosed

COVID-19 Impact on Child Marriage: Updates to CMOI User Guide and Investment Case
From: Avenir Health
Other investigators: Dr John Symons
For period: 2021-2021
 Not disclosed
Economic Analysis for WHO Investment Case 2.0
From: World Health Organization
Other investigators: Dr John Symons, Mrs Neelam Maharaj, Ms Margarita Kumnick, Dr Kim Sweeny, Prof Peter Sheehan
For period: 2021-2021
 Not disclosed
Modelling impact of vaccines in Australia
From: Shawview Consulting Australia Pty Ltd
Other investigators: Ms Margarita Kumnick, Dr Kim Sweeny
For period: 2021-2021
 Not disclosed

An Investment Case Study on HPV Vaccination in Vietnam
From: United Nations Population Fund
Other investigators: Dr Kim Sweeny, Dr John Symons, Mrs Neelam Maharaj, Ms Alison Welsh
For period: 2020-2022
 Not disclosed
China's Development: Finance, Growth Models and Sustainable Development in Recipient Countries
From: Ford Foundation Beijing
Other investigators: Prof Peter Sheehan, Prof Bhajan Grewal, Dr Xiaocui Lou
For period: 2020-2024
 Not disclosed
Syria Education and Development Investment Case (SEDIC)
From: UNICEF - Syria Country Office
Other investigators: Prof Peter Sheehan
For period: 2020-2020
 Not disclosed

Investing in Women's Sight - Benefits Across Generations
From: Fred Hollows Foundation
Other investigators: Dr Kim Sweeny, Dr John Symons, Ms Celeste Young
For period: 2019-2021
 Not disclosed
Cost of Eliminating Child Marriage and Intimate Partner Violence
From: United Nations Population Fund
Other investigators: Prof Peter Sheehan, Mrs Neelam Maharaj
For period: 2019-2019
 Not disclosed

Cost Benefit Analysis of Health Interventions to Improve Labour Productivity
From: US Chamber of Commerce Grant
Other investigators: Prof Peter Sheehan, Dr Kim Sweeny, Dr John Symons, Ms Alison Welsh, Ms Margarita Kumnick, Mrs Neelam Maharaj
For period: 2018-2020
 Not disclosed
Investment Framework Case Study: Estimating the Impacts & Opportunity Costs of Social Sector Investments for Adolescents (10-19 years) in Burundi.
From: UNICEF-Bujumbura/Burundi
Other investigators: Dr John Symons, Dr Kim Sweeny, Prof Peter Sheehan, Mrs Neelam Maharaj, Ms Alison Welsh, Ms Margarita Kumnick
For period: 2018-2019
 Not disclosed
Establishment of Victorian Energy Policy Centre (VEPC)
From: Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Other investigators: Mr Bruce Mountain, Prof Peter Sheehan, Mrs Neelam Maharaj, Ms Alison Welsh, Dr Steven Percy, Dr Kelly Burns, Ms Stephanie Rizio
For period: 2018-2020
 $1,859,999

Building Strength and Capability through Diversity
From: Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Ltd, Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies
Other investigators: Dr Fiona Macdonald, Ms Celeste Young, Dr Joanne Pyke
For period: 2017-2021
 Not disclosed

Supervision of research students at VU

Available to supervise research students

Available for media queries

Completed supervision of research students at VU

No. of students Study level Role
8 PhD Associate supervisor
2 Doctor of Business Administration Associate supervisor

Completed supervision of research students at VU

Students & level Role
PhD (8) Associate supervisor
Doctor of Business Administration (2) Associate supervisor

Key academic roles

Dates Role Department / Organisation
Jan 2011 - Present
Director VISES
Victoria University
Dates Role & Department/Organisation
Jan 2011 -
Present
Director VISES
Victoria University

Key industry, community & government roles

Dates Role Department/Organisation
Jul 2017 - Jun 2019
Academic Co-Chair
APEC Life Sciences Innovation Forum
Dates Role & Department/Organisation
Jul 2017 - Jun 2019
Academic Co-Chair
APEC Life Sciences Innovation Forum

Professional memberships

  • Member, Economic Society of Australia
  • Member, Harvard Club of Australia