Helena Roy

Helena Roy

I'm an economist studying how innovation — technological, institutional, and informational — changes the way health decisions get made.

My goal is to understand the optimal design and deployment of new information technologies in healthcare — accounting for variation in behaviour — so people can make well-informed choices about their health, and improve the outcomes that follow. In current research, I consider how people seek out health information online, and how diagnostic innovation happens, among other topics. I work on these questions as a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Ariel Stern's group on digital health, economics, and policy, at the Hasso Plattner Institute.

Alongside my research, I actively work with healthtech start-ups, and am a (non-resident) fellow at the Centre for British Progress. I hold a PhD in Economics from Stanford, an MPhil from Oxford, and a BA from Cambridge. I'm from the UK and Aotearoa New Zealand, and enjoy outdoor activities, reading, and flat whites.

Research

Work in progress
Measuring Diagnostic Innovation
Mapping Health Information in Online Communities
How Patients Choose Physicians Online
with Helen Kissel and Tamri Matiashvili
Working papers — drafts available upon request
Selection into Healthcare Delivery Innovations: Birth Centers and Maternal Health
with Helen Kissel, Ambar La Forgia, Petra Persson, and Maya Rossin-Slater
Presented at ASHEcon 2025
Understanding Variation in Cesarean Section Use: Supply-Side Drivers and Maternal Health Effects
with Helen Kissel
Presented at ASHEcon 2025
Physician Training and Patient Heterogeneity: Evidence from Physician Residencies
with Helen Kissel

Other

I have written various briefings exploring how policy can encourage economic growth through innovation. One public example, on sovereign AI bonds, was published by UK Day One and presented as part of LSE and Anthropic's Economic Symposia in 2025.

Contact

You can reach me by email here.