Professor of health economics with a focus on general practice

By Marianne Lie Becker, mlbecker@health.sdu.dk, 4/10/2024

In the professorship, Line Bjørnskov Pedersen will continue to contribute to research on the organisation of general practice with a special focus on how new practice types affect well-being, patient satisfaction and treatment quality, as well as how market changes, such as new medical breakthroughs and fee changes, affect patient treatment and the role motivation and well-being play in this context.

Line Bjørnskov Pedersen’s research area is organisation in general practice and the motivation and treatment behaviour of general practitioners (GPs). Over the years, she has conducted research on the impact of the organisation in general practice on the well-being of healthcare professionals, patient satisfaction and treatment quality. Among other topics, Line Bjørnskov Pedersen has researched the impact of practice types on the choice of practice, task delegation between GPs and practice staff, changes in the fee structure and user payment, the prevalence of defensive medicine and the treatment behaviour of retiring GPs.

Line Bjørnskov Pedersen is particularly interested in how GPs react to organisational changes, such as accreditation, quality clusters, the introduction of new clinical guidelines and fee structure changes, as well as market changes, such as major medical breakthroughs and COVID-19. She is particularly interested in understanding the impact of motivation and well-being on the responses to such market changes.

The theoretical framework of Line Bjørnskov Pedersen’s research is principal-agent theory and various motivational theories, such as self-determination theory and crowding theory.

Line Bjørnskov Pedersen graduated from the University of Southern Denmark with a bachelor’s degree in business administration (HA) from 2006 and a master’s degree in economics (cand.oecon.) from 2008. In 2012, she was awarded a PhD in Economics at the University of Southern Denmark. Line Bjørnskov Pedersen was employed in a half-time position as assistant professor and later as associate professor at what is now known as the Danish Centre for Health Economics (DaCHE). At the same time, she was employed in a half-time position as a senior researcher at the Research Unit for General Practice in Odense/Esbjerg (FEA). Line Bjørnskov Pedersen will continue to hold a half-time position at DaCHE and a half-time position at FEA, where she is also head of the research group ‘Organisation in general practice’.

Over the years, Line Bjørnskov Pedersen has had international collaborations with researchers from universities in Norway, the Netherlands, England, Scotland and the USA, as well as research stays in Australia, and she has sat on a number of international assessment and scientific committees. In 2023, Line Bjørnskov Pedersen was appointed as an external reviewer for the European Research Council, and one of her articles on GP motivation was named among the top 10 most read articles by a prestigious and recognised journal. From 2022 to 2023, Line Bjørnskov Pedersen was affiliated as an expert with the Council for a new reimbursement structure in general practice. In 2018, Line Bjørnskov Pedersen was awarded the Magda and Svend Aage Friedrichs Award for her contribution to research in general practice. Line Bjørnskov Pedersen has been editor of the Nordic Journal of Health Economics since 2018.

Line Bjørnskov Pedersen was born in Odense on 6 December 1981. Today, Line Bjørnskov Pedersen lives in Haarby on the southwest of Funen with her husband and her dogs. In her spare time, she plays soccer in Ubberud Sports Association, and she enjoys spending time in nature when visiting the family’s ‘ødegård’ (traditional Swedish holiday cottage) in the forests of Southern Sweden.